


Mine to Keep

by otp_tears



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Ghost Sex, Ghost Shiro, Ghosts, M/M, Spectrophilia, end-game shieth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-01-26 11:43:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12556656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otp_tears/pseuds/otp_tears
Summary: Keith—top exorcist at the Garrison, worked closely with his fiancé, Shiro, until a case went wrong. Months later, Pidge needs Keith's help on a similar case, but Keith is reluctant to return to work and risk his secret life with his ghost fiancé.-Shiro touched the back of two fingers to Keith’s cheek. “I won’t be gone as long next time.”Keith knew the promise was empty, but allowed Shiro to seal it with a kiss. Ghosts had been their job, but Keith wouldn’t return to the Garrison. He’d had enough of hauntings and gateways.





	1. Placated

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I love ghosts.  
> There will be talk of grief throughout and ofc ghost sex because I can't help myself.
> 
> The one and only relationship in this fic is Shiro/Keith. (I suppose Keith/Grief is a second ship) This is not a "recover and love again" story.
> 
> edit: I forgot to say that Nicole is my grammar/punctuation beta and deserves a big thanks! she deals with all my phone keyboard mistakes.

**Chapter One**

Keith held opened a gateway, waiting for the faint outline of something human-shaped to pass through. On paper, the job wasn’t different from any before. The two story Victorian style house on Melrose Court held an unwanted phantom and the owners had paid for it to be cleansed.

The energy expended pressed against his chest, but he didn’t waver. He could hold a gateway longer than any exorcist at the Garrison. For five years he’d cleansed hauntings with gateways. The form of exorcism had first been shown to him by Shiro, the Garrison refined his technique, and Keith believed he’d perfected it.

The pressure against his chest tightened sharply enough to squeeze the air from his lungs. His concentration wavered, and his hold on his gateway slipped. It closed.

Keith drew a deep breath, starring down the shadow in the home’s kitchen.

“Keith.” Shiro uncrossed his arms from where he observed from the living room behind Keith’s position. He was intimidating at first glance, but every muscle in his tense frame held gentleness and concern. “What is it?”

Keith squinted, trying to make out details in the figure. Something was strange with this one. It felt...wrong. “I think it closed my gateway.”

“That’s impossible,” Pidge stated. She sat on the family’s couch shoved into the corner of the room with her laptop, observing the Garrison monitoring equipment set up throughout the house. “Only an exorcist can close a gateway. You probably just lost your hold.”

“I didn’t,” Keith argued without too much anger. Pidge's disagreements no longer upset him as much as they used to before he’d grown accustomed to her scientific way of thinking.

Shiro came to his side and looked into the kitchen. He couldn’t see what Keith saw, but he had the ability to sense phantoms. “Open another one,” he instructed. His calm and assured voice eased Keith’s worry.

Keith looked at the shadow and opened another gateway closer to it. The familiar weight settled against his chest. When the gateway was forcefully ripped from his control this time, he felt the drain on his energy. The recoil of it shoved him backward. He stumbled but Shiro caught him by his arm before he fell.

“Keith—”

“You saw it.” Keith needed confirmation. Shiro couldn’t see phantoms, but he could see gateways.

“I felt the attack. Are you okay?”

“Attack?” Pidge echoed from across the room. “Seriously? The readings on all the equipment went...” she waved her hand. “Wonky. I’ve never seen a specter fight a gateway before. I didn’t know it was possible.”

“It usually isn’t.” Shiro released Keith’s arm. “We’re going to open two gateways. Do you have enough energy for a third try, Keith?”

“I’m fine.” One thing Keith never lacked was energy. “Let’s get this over with.”

Shiro smiled and touched the back of two fingers to Keith’s cheek. It was their secret code for “I love you.” On the job they weren’t anything more than colleagues, but to Keith, Shiro would always be home regardless of human resources regulations.

“Ready?” Shiro asked.

Keith nodded, but thirty seconds later, he’d wish he hadn’t.

The siphon of energy came from Keith, but the redirected burst started with Shiro’s gateway. Keith hadn’t witnessed or felt such violence before. The force threw both exorcists. Further away, Pidge was unaffected.

Keith and Shiro hit the farthest wall, shattering a curio cabinet under their combined weight. Keith tasted blood and wondered if he’d lost a tooth or bitten his tongue. His exhaustion dulled the pain to background static.

He looked up at the approaching specter, and drew the last of his energy for another gateway. This time he opened it underneath the entity, no longer giving it the option to leave.

When he closed it, the house was cleansed and quiet except for his ragged breath and Pidge’s soft “what the hell was that?”

Keith felt every new bruise and an unsettling difference he couldn’t grasp.

 

* * *

 

Keith woke with a start and a racing heartbeat. A few seconds passed in silence before he realized he was in bed at home and not in a family’s haunted house with an anomaly fighting to remain where it wasn’t wanted. He breathed out and his breath fogged in the light from the street.

“Another nightmare?” Shiro wrapped his arm around Keith’s waist. The last of the dream evaporated under his touch.

“You’re back,” Keith said. His heart sighed with tangible relief in Shiro’s presence.

“It snowed last night,” Shiro said.

Keith touched Shiro’s arm. The chill in the air sent a shiver through him. “Makes sense.”

“You left the window open.” The accusation was bland but still sharp with concern. Keith couldn’t deny the truth. They both knew he’d intentionally left it cracked for the winter air to seep into the room.

“Is the furnace still broken?” Shiro asked.

Keith grunted noncommittally and turned in Shiro’s embrace. He studied the scar across the bridge of his nose and the white tuff of hair courtesy of an anomaly three months prior. “I’ve missed you.”

Shiro touched the back of two fingers to Keith’s cheek. “I won’t be gone as long next time.”

Keith knew the promise was empty, but allowed Shiro to seal it with a kiss. Ghosts had been their job, but Keith wouldn’t return to the Garrison. He’d had enough of hauntings and gateways.

 

* * *

  
 

It was still cold when Keith got out of bed. He wrapped himself in a blanket and headed downstairs to the kitchen where the window had been closed to ward off the winter weather. He checked his phone for messages but a black screen greeted him. He sighed and plugged it into the charger.

“Shiro, don’t touch my phone,” he yelled toward the stairs.

After coffee was brewed, he sat down at the table and powered on his phone. He had two new texts from Pidge. Both were the standard fare of “how are you” and “what are you up to?”

Keith replied “fine. Nothing new,” and set down his phone. He shouldn’t have replied and alerted her that he was with his phone, because it rang a moment later. Knowing she’d only call back until he answered, he accepted the inevitable.

“Yeah?” Keith answered and stared at his coffee, waiting for a conversation he probably didn’t want to have.

“Keith! You should really answer your phone more. I need your help.”

He frowned. That wasn’t the conversation he expected. “My help?”

“It’s another anomaly.”

“Another—? No.” Keith had left the Garrison and exorcism behind. Ghosts hadn’t necessarily left him behind, but he could ignore them just as easily as he did living people. “I quit, remember?”

“The Garrison never accepted your resignation, so you’re only on extended leave, and I need your help.”

Keith sighed. “I’m not—”

“It’s been three months, Keith.” The carefully constructed cheer in her voice chipped and revealed the sympathy Keith didn’t want to hear. “What do you do all day?”

Keith glanced at the ceiling, envisioning the bedroom upstairs where he’d left Shiro. “Not much.”

“You need work,” Pidge insisted.

“I have a job.”

“Fixing motorcycles every so often at a shady, cash-only garage is not a real job.”

Keith couldn’t argue. The gig wasn’t even permanent—or technically legal, but he could tinker on his own motorcycle there free of charge if he helped rebuild a few motors whenever needed. It wasn’t a bad situation, but it didn’t pay bills.

“You’re a great exorcist,” Pidge continued after Keith had stayed quiet too long.

“I was mediocre.”

Pidge groaned softly. It wasn’t an argument she’d engage over the phone. “Let’s compromise. Come by and take a look at the case, tell the head exorcist how you exorcised the other one, and I’ll be satisfied. I won’t bother you for a month. Maybe only three weeks. Definitely two weeks. Deal?”

“Fine.” Keith knew if he said no, she would persist until he agreed. “But that’s it.”

“That’s all I want.”

“I’ll be there at noon.”

“You know where to find me.” Pidge rang off and Keith dropped his phone to the table. He’d return to the Garrison and the office he’d shared with Pidge and Shiro. It wasn’t how he wanted to spend the first snow of the season.

 

* * *

 

“I’m telling you, apparitions are stronger in the winter,” Lance said, kicking his feet up onto his desk. “It’s the snow.” He drew out the vowel to punctuate his point, but it was still lost on Hunk.

“You’re only excited about pelting me with snowballs.” Hunk adjusted the camera and checked the live feed on his laptop.

“That’s just a bonus of why winter is the best season.” Lance leaned back in his chair. “You could throw one back every once in a while.”

“That would instigate an all-out war I would surely lose.”

“The snow melted before nine,” Pidge said from her own desk in their shared office. “When did you have a snowball fight?”

“He brought a few into the house at six in the morning.” Hunk sagged in his chair at the memory. “My alarm is set for 8 am.”

Pidge settled a look of judgement onto Lance. “You’re the worst roommate.”

Lance dropped his feet to the floor. “He threw a shoe at me!” he defended with the expected feigned indignation that Pidge had deemed trademark-Lance upon their first meeting.

“Pidge?” The door swung inward and Keith took a step inside. He paused and stared in bewilderment at Hunk and his video camera directed at him. He looked tired—exhausted, really, but to anyone who didn’t know him as Pidge did he passed as normal in faded black jeans and a red hoodie under a leather riding jacket.

“Hello,” Hunk greeted. “I’m just testing equipment.” He patted the camera but didn’t point it away from the visitor. Keith studied Hunk’s set up with vague interest as he took off his gloves and shoved them into his helmet.

“Keith, I didn’t actually expect you.” Pidge jumped up and rounded her desk. Keith looked at her and his expression passed as a smile.

“Keith?” Lance slapped his hands into his desk and pushed himself up. “Keith Kogane?”

Keith narrowed his eyes. Pidge ran interference. “Lance, this is my old partner, Keith. Keith, that’s Lance. He’s my...the head exorcist for the team.”

“Ah. Right. Where’s the case file?” Keith looked away from Lance. His disinterest palpable. Even when he was with the Garrison, he rarely warmed to strangers. Pidge had only seen the sharp edge of his discomfort dull in Shiro’s presence.

“The name’s Lance McClain,” Lance cut in, unable, as always, to be ignored. “I’m the number one exorcist currently active at the Garrison.” His boast came with a grin Keith frowned at.

“Okay,” Keith said. “Congratulations, I guess.”

“I’m only one away from beating your record,” Lance continued with the same grin but added a slow eye blink that Pidge recognized as another trademark-Lance mannerism, but his gloat would be wasted on Keith.

“My what?” Keith asked but the question held no curiosity.

“Record. Of exorcisms during duty.”

Keith stared a second longer and returned his gaze to Pidge. He hadn’t come by to talk about records she assumed he hadn’t known existed before that moment. “Pidge—”

“Counting the last three months,” Lance continued, holding up three fingers, “I’ve been on active duty for less hours than you before you bailed on exorcisms. So really, I think the record is already mine.”

“If you’re an exorcist just for records, you don’t belong at the Garrison,” Keith snapped.

Lance’s expression dropped into shock, but recovered just as quickly. “I’m an exorcist because gateways are my specialty.”

Keith clenched his jaw. Pidge shot Lance a look she hoped would communicate just how much she needed him to shut up. “The anomaly is in a hotel,” she said. Lance looked at her and mercilessly shut up. “The case was passed to us because of my past experience with one. Except the experience on my part was limited since I can’t see phantoms or gateways without equipment.” She gestured toward the camera and laptop on Hunk’s desk. “But I don’t think Iverson cares about the logistics.”

“I doubt he understands the difference,” Lance muttered.

“The specter has evaded two gateways,” Pidge continued as if Lance hadn’t spoken. “It’s also classified a level 4 due to its frequent appearances and ability to move objects.”

Keith crossed his arms. “A ghost will evade a gateway because it doesn’t want to leave.”

“Whoa whoa whoa. What?” Lance waved his arms, as if he could erase Keith’s last sentence. “First of all, the approved terms are ‘specter,’ ‘phantom,’ or ‘apparition’—not ghost. Second, specters are drawn to gateways. They can’t just run away.”

Keith glared at Lance and Pidge accepted the inevitable. She leaned back against her desk and held the file to her chest to wait out the argument.

“Do you only believe what the Garrison tells you?” Keith asked, facing Lance.

“I hate to break it to you, but they’re the expert on paranormal apparition studies.” Lance crossed his arms after Keith had lowered his. “I think the 40 years of research beats your opinion.”

“My opinion is to leave this one alone.”

“You know we can’t do that,” Pidge said.

“Then smudge the hotel,” Keith countered without missing a beat. “You can lessen the connection and encourage it to leave without a gateway.”

“Encourage?” Lance echoed incredulously. “Phantoms are nothing but an echo of a memory in energy form that needs to be removed. It can’t be encouraged. It doesn’t have wants.”

Pidge had heard the same lecture many times at the Garrison, so had Keith, but for some reason Lance’s words angered him. Their last case together had obviously changed Keith’s thoughts on the matter.

“How does any of that explain how a phantom can avoid a gateway?” Keith demanded.

Lance shrugged. “The other exorcists clearly couldn’t create a proper gateway.”

“Just where do you think those gateways go? If it’s energy from a past event, why does it need a gateway to be cleansed?”

“A gateway is a supernatural vacuum cleaner.” Lance would back down just as likely as Keith would. Pidge felt a headache forming.

“How did you cleanse the one from three months ago?” she asked, hoping to get back on track.

Keith tensed but answered her with his gaze downcast. “I opened a gateway beneath it.”

Lance blew out a scoff. “You want me to open an unstable gateway? That could kill someone.”

“I don’t want you to do anything,” Keith shouted.

“Okay.” Pidge held up a placating hand. Keith had always been quick to anger but it felt off this time. Personal. Maybe the scar from three months ago hadn’t healed as much as she’d hoped.

Keith closed his eyes, breathed in to steady his emotions, and left. Pidge didn’t follow.

“What’s his problem?” Lance complained. “I heard he didn’t make friends here, but I hadn’t heard he was such a—” he glanced at Pidge, spotted her glare, and lost steam on his insult. “Well. I mean. He’s a jerk.”

Pidge sighed. The story wasn’t exactly a secret at the Garrison, but gossip had been discouraged. “He lost his fiancé. I guess he’s still not over it.”

“Oh man,” Hunk whispered. He overflowed with empathy so the tears that reflected in his eyes for a stranger’s pain didn’t alarm Pidge.

Lance let out a bark of laughter. “No wonder he’s such a grump.”

“Lance?” Pidge hadn’t expected Lance’s insensitivity to be this bad.

“To be dumped by a fiancé is like ten times worse than a boyfriend or girlfriend.” Lance dropped into his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “It probably still stings. No wonder he’s angry.”

Pidge shook her head. “That’s not what—”

“Whoa.” Hunk sat forward and adjusted his laptop screen. “Keith brought in a cold spot with him.”

“So?” Lance wasn’t impressed.

“It left with him too.” Hunk turned his laptop and played the thermal video for Pidge and Lance.

“Must be equipment malfunction,” Pidge decided.

“Well, yeah,” Hunk agreed. “Or the Garrison is haunted. Which is probably impossible. Right? I mean it’s filled with exorcists and many can see specters. So. Yeah. It isn’t haunted.”

“I think I would’ve noticed a specter,” Lance said.

“Of course.” Hunk returned his laptop to its original position. “Because you’re the best exorcist at the Garrison.” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on Pidge, but Lance smiled at what he accepted as genuine praise.

“I’ll be right back.” Pidge dropped the case file onto her desk and went after Keith.

 

* * *

 

Keith had just swung his leg over his motorcycle when he heard Pidge’s approach. He paused with his helmet in his hands.

“Keith, wait.” She paused to catch her breath.

“I can’t help you, Pidge. I cleansed that specter by breaking a rule that’s there to protect the living. I fucked up.”

Predictably she denied it. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

Keith knew the truth and no matter how many times Pidge said the contrary, he wouldn’t forgive himself. “You heard your new exorcist. An unstable gateway can kill someone.”

“You didn’t kill Shiro. Your gateway didn’t kill Shiro.”

It had taken three months, but Pidge had finally dropped society norms and spoke of Shiro’s death bluntly. It jarred Keith to hear her no longer tip-toe around the words, but “kill” was exactly what Keith had done. Even if by accident.

Keith pulled on his helmet. “I gotta go.”

Pidge stepped away from the curb. Her sympathy was mixed with her own sorrow for Shiro and some for Keith. Keith understood that, but he couldn’t explain to her that he didn’t need sympathy. His own unique and complicated mix of grief was placated by Shiro. They never got to their vows and “till death do us part,” and maybe that’s why Shiro had returned after death.

Keith wouldn’t lose him again.


	2. Hot Roommate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith talks with Shiro and Lance drops by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone!
> 
> Nicole fixed my mistakes again. Thank you~

**Chapter Two**

“Shiro,” Keith called out the moment he entered his house. He stopped in the kitchen and when Shiro appeared in the doorway, he yanked off his jacket. The sudden appearance no longer frighten him the way it had the first time. He hadn’t felt Shiro’s presence then. He now always did.

“You followed me,” Keith said. The accusation gentle but still coated with anger. “An exorcist could have sensed you.”

“I’m allowed to leave the house.” Shiro’s reply was calm, but his purposeful lack of concern for his wellbeing was his own form of defiance.

Keith sighed and reached into his front jeans pocket. “What did you use to carry you? I know you didn’t anchor to me.”

Shiro ignored Keith’s question and posed his own. “Do you really think someone would open a gateway at the Garrison just because they felt my presence?” He knew that was hardly the point even if he was right. An exorcist wouldn’t open a gateway just because they felt a wandering phantom nearby. If they did, they’d be opening gateways all day.

“It’s just better if you don’t go there.” Keith dumped the few items from his pockets onto the kitchen table: wallet, keys, gum wrapper, 45 cents in loose change, and a ball of lint.

He picked up the wrapper. He didn’t chew gum. “Did you anchor on a piece of trash in order to hitch a ride?”

“I have self-respect even after death.” Even translucent, Shiro’s crossed arm stance was intimidating. Keith knew it was mostly an act. He’d been his own form of gentle in life, and in death the coldest part of him was still his hands.

“Of course you do.” Keith let the wrapper fall back to the table. It might’ve been from a previous outing with Pidge. He lifted his jacket from the back of the chair and searched the inner pocket. His finger brushed a familiar shape and his irritation at Shiro evaporated. He pulled out his hand and revealed a gold wedding band used for an engagement only four months long.

“The original anchor,” Keith whispered. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice you moved it here.”

Shiro lowered his gaze. Maybe ashamed he’d risk the loss of such an important item on a brief errand. “I would’ve brought it back if you’d dropped it.”

Keith slipped it on. It hung loosely on his finger. Shiro’s hands had been larger than his. “Just don’t go to the Garrison anymore,” he said quietly.

“Keith.” Shiro shifted closer. The movement happened between blinks of Keith’s eyes. It no longer unnerved him. “Open a gateway.”

Keith removed the ring. “No.”

“I’m hurting you the longer I’m here.”

Lance had been almost right when he called phantoms energy. They were more like batteries, requiring frequent recharges. Household electricity was enough and caused havoc on appliances, but humans attuned to the supernatural worked best. Shiro leeched energy from Keith by proximity. Keith found the exchange more than fair because every so often he could feel Shiro’s touch again.

“Is that why you followed me to the Garrison?” Keith asked. “To get a gateway?”

“No. I wanted to see Pidge.”

“I’ll invite her over.”

“Not until you fix the furnace.”

“You do better in the cold.”

Shiro sighed. At least he made the expression and gesture of a sigh without the breath. “You’d do better with warmth.”

Keith reached out to touch Shiro, but his hand passed through his arm without resistance. “I’d do better with more time with you.”

Shiro’s smile was soft, endearing. “I shouldn’t prolong goodbye much longer, Keith. I’m not good for you.”

“You’re the only good thing I have left.” The argument always ended there, with his proclamation Shiro couldn’t or wouldn’t counter. “Do you really want to leave, Shiro?”

“I never wanted to leave you, Keith.” Shiro raised his hand and Keith felt the back of two fingers brush against his cheek.

Keith closed his eyes and whispered, “love you too.” When he opened them, he was alone.

 

* * *

 

Shiro was a constant, disembodied presence in Keith’s life. His physical form was weakest during the day, so he waited until the big hand on Shiro’s watch—the one Keith got him for his 30th birthday the year before—ticked past 5 am before he tried to sleep. The frequent adjustments to his schedule and lack of rest would catch up to him, but every lost hour of sleep was worth it for those rare nights when he could feel Shiro’s touch again.

In Shiro’s life, Keith had hardly spent a day without him. In his death, Keith couldn’t predict when Shiro would have enough energy to be heard, seen, or felt.

Keith lifted his head, unsure what had brought him out of sleep. The faint sound of an insistent knock at his front door repeated. By the dull light leaking in from outside and his fatigue, he guessed it wasn’t even noon. He’d ignore whoever was at his door and try for another hour of sleep.

“Keith,” Shiro said. Keith looked at his faint form in the bedroom doorway. He could see through him and into the hallway beyond. “There’s someone downstairs.”

Keith adjusted the pile of blankets. “They’ll go away.”

“It’s the exorcist from Pidge’s team.”

“Lance?” Keith snorted. “I’m not getting up for him. He can stand on the porch all day.”

“I let him in. He’s in the kitchen.”

Keith sat up, fully awake. “You—? Why? How did—?” he dropped all questions and rolled out of bed, wincing when his feet hit the cold floor.

“He might be here to apologize.” Shiro was faded more than he’d been in the past week, but Keith could still make out his grin. Practical jokes weren’t his style, but he’d never been above placing Keith in uncomfortable situations to encourage growth. He trusted in Keith's ability to handle the irritating exorcist from the Garrison.

“Fine.” Keith pulled on a fresh shirt and grabbed the nearest hoodie.

Lance stood in the middle of the kitchen with a folder in his hand and a look caught between confusion and fear. His gray suit and black coat looked standard-issued by the Garrison, but his unbuttoned collar and loosened blue tie went against the stringent dress code Keith had followed only under Shiro’s care.

“Oh, hey.” Lance noticed Keith’s entrance and stepped out of his path to the coffee machine.

“What do you want?” Keith opened a cabinet and retrieved a bag of coffee.

Lance covered his unease with an exaggerated grin. “Are you aware it’s warmer outside than in your house?”

“Furnace is busted.” Keith started the machine and leaned against the counter, facing his unwanted visitor. “How do you know where I live?”

“I have a friend at the Garrison who has access to employee data. I asked for a favor.”

Keith studied him, unsure why a friend would risk job termination for Lance. “You didn’t ask Pidge?”

“Oh.” Lance blinked and chucked a beat later. “Yeah, she probably would know where you lived. That would’ve been easier and involved less promises I shouldn’t keep.”

Keith shook his head. He didn’t want to know what Lance meant. “What’s the folder?”

Lance looked at the item in question but offered no answer. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “Look, I want to apologize for yesterday. Pidge told me about your fiancé.”

Keith lowered his gaze and prepared himself for a stranger’s sympathy that cut deeper than his grief. Any offered platitude he would’ve already heard a hundred times over by Garrison colleagues who hadn’t spoken to him since Shiro’s funeral. “The world will keep spinning, the sun will shine again, it’s always darkest before dawn,” and any other cosmic or meteorological phrase said to console a bereaved person, drowning in a heartache that couldn’t be described. The lifelines hadn’t helped Keith.

“It sucks to be dumped,” Lance said, a bit too upbeat. “But it’s been three months, right? It’s time to block them on social media and move on, buddy.”

Keith stared, unsure if Lance had misunderstood the situation or Pidge had lied. Also who gave him permission to call Keith buddy?

“Listen,” Lance continued in Keith’s stunned silence. He dropped the folder onto the table and made a show of flicking his hair back from his forehead, but it was too short to do anything more than bounce in place. “The best medicine for a broken heart after a break up is to date someone new.”

Keith’s stomach twisted.

“That hot roommate of yours is a perfect candidate,” Lance finished. “He’s a little intimidating—and the white hair makes him look older—but he seemed nice. And nice is what you need in a rebound.”

Keith glanced at the ceiling and the bedroom above. Lance had seen Shiro. Maybe he wasn’t a terrible exorcist as Keith had assumed by his attitude the day before. Although, he hadn’t caught on that Shiro was dead so his initial assumption was probably accurate.

“But I’m actually not here to give you advice about your roommate.” Lance pick up and waved the folder. “I know you said we shouldn’t open a gateway, but you should read the case before deciding this phantom should stay. I don’t think a simple smudge will matter much to this one. It seems pretty deep seeded.”

Keith hesitated but accepted the folder. He opened it and glanced over the first few pages. It contained history on the building and likely phantom candidates. “Who did all this research?”

“I did. I’m not the best exorcist at the Garrison just because of my good looks.”

Keith closed the folder. No amount of information would change his mind. “I can’t help you.”

“That’s your copy.” Lance took a step toward the hallway, unfazed by Keith’s rejection. “Just read it over. Pidge is convinced you can cleanse this anomaly, and maybe she convinced me it wouldn’t hurt my reputation to have assistance. But it’ll count as my exorcism.”

“You didn’t seem interested in my assistance yesterday.”

“I still don’t think an unstable gateway is the solution, but you do have a reputation, and _you_ were definitely not ranked number one based on your looks. You should moisturize more. It’ll help with the”—Lance gestured at his own face—“everything.”

Keith nodded because he didn’t know how else to respond to most of what Lance had rambled.

“I need to get back. See ya.” Lance started out of the kitchen. Keith listened to his retreating footsteps reach the front door and pause. Lance punctuated his exit with a demand, “Fix your furnace,” and was gone.

Keith placed the folder on the counter and stared at it, wanting the Garrison logo to tell him what to do. His gateway had taken Shiro from him. What if it happened again?

“I could go look around,” Shiro offered.

Shiro was anchored to an item, but he could still occasionally venture outside of its influence. Without his anchor, travel was difficult but not impossible. However, the offer carried greater risks outside of becoming a lost soul in the city.

Keith put his hand on top of the folder to prevent prying ghost hands. “No. We don’t know what an anomaly will do to another ghost.”

“We don’t, but it isn’t okay to leave a dangerous one unrestrained in a hotel with guests.” Shiro’s sense of heroism hadn’t died three months ago. If Keith still declined, Shiro might do something in his place.

“I’ll help them,” Keith said. “That’s what you want me to do, right?”

“I want you happy.” Shiro’s form had faded too much to see his smile, but Keith heard it in the soft tone of his voice. “Working again might help. You’re worth so much more than you believe.”

Keith swallowed the lump in his throat. Left alone, he’d forget his self-worth. His best-self had died with Shiro. Whatever was left was who he was now, and for some reason, Shiro saw those scraps of what Keith used to be as worthy of something better than what Keith’s heartache would allow him to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yeah~ let's get investigating~


	3. What You Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith visits the hotel for some plot....and gets some ghost dick later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿  
> let me earn that explicit rating.

**Chapter Three**

After breakfast of coffee from the corner diner, Keith drove to Hotel Altea. He parked a block away and entered the ornate lobby that reeked of money. He stood out in his boots and helmet under his arm, but he hoped he could get a quick look before anyone asked him to leave.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Keith had gotten halfway across the lobby before a man dressed in a navy suit spotted him and approached. His orange hair matched his mustache.

“I was just—”

“You’re with the Garrison, aren’t you? I can tell by your folder.” The man whispered too loudly to truly care if anyone overheard. He offered his hand. “I’m Coran. Are you Hunk or Pidge?”

He was friendly—which unnerved Keith in a way different than the dead ever could. Keith accepted his handshake. “Keith. But I’m not—” he stopped himself. It would be in his interest to go along with the assumption.

“Is the situation so dire they had to add a fourth?” The crease of worry across Coran’s forehead lasted only a moment before he straightened and gestured to his right. “Let’s drop off your helmet and start the tour.” Coran started toward the front desk and Keith followed. “You know, I used to ride a motorcycle in my younger days. They called me daredevil-Coran.” He took Keith’s helmet and set it on the counter. The woman at the computer smiled and concealed it behind the desk. “Those were the days. I broke my elbow and never rode again.”

In the elevator, Coran scanned a keycard and selected the fourteenth floor. “We’ve had to close the floor to guests.”

Keith opened the folder. “The phantom has only been a problem there?”

“Yes. It started after the remodel. It was only opened to guests for two months. It’s a liability now. Ghosts aren’t covered by insurance, you know?”

Keith flipped a page, matching what Coran said to Lance’s research. “What’s on the floor?”

“Recreation. A swimming pool, two hot tubs, a spa, and a few event rooms. The ballroom is downstairs so this ordeal won’t affect weddings, but it has upset more than a few kiddos on vacation.”

The doors opened to a brightly lit hallway. Nothing looked dangerous, but Keith’s gut twisted. There was definitely something on the fourteenth floor, and it wasn’t friendly.

Keith stepped into the hallway. The air smelled of chlorine and floor wax but felt heavy with death. It wasn’t a new feeling in a location with a confirmed haunting, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood and his pulse quickened. Something about it was more familiar than routine, but he couldn’t place why.

He opened the folder again to refocus his attention. “There was a suicide on this floor?” The presence didn’t feel like one. The anger went beyond the despair he’d felt from suicide victims in the past.

“We’ve had a few over the hotel’s life. Only one on this floor within the last ten years.”

Keith couldn’t pinpoint why, but whatever was roaming the fourteenth floor was different from what he’d exorcised before.

“Every building standing long enough amasses deaths,” Coran continued before Keith could ask about everything Lance had uncovered. “Hotels are no stranger to it. Shall we look at the pool? The ghost had splashed quite a few guests before we closed the floor.” Coran scanned his card at the door marked “pool” but Keith’s attention wandered. He walked down the hall, toward what he thought was the source of the malevolence.

Coran hesitated but followed. “That’s fine. We could look at the fitness room. Guests complained about weights moving around. Maybe it’s a bodybuilder ghost.”

Keith stopped at an intersection. To his left was an alcove with two vending machines. A shadow filled the space between them with a recyclables bin. It was too dark to be caused by the lighting. Keith studied it and after a moment, he felt it look back.

Keith understood fear. He had feared his foster father and the older kids just as full of resentment as he had once been. However, Keith had never felt the need to run from what scared him. His fear was a galvanizing type and offered enough anger in response for Keith to be able to stand his ground no matter what the repercussions would be.

He watched the shadow, made out the shape of a figure, and wanted to run.

“Keith.” Lance clapped his hand on Keith’s arm, breaking his concentration. He took a step beyond Keith’s position and threw a handful of salt between the vending machines. The shadow disappeared.

Keith sucked in a breath. He hadn’t heard Lance’s approach, but the thrown salt had temporarily removed the phantom.

“Are you trying to get corrupted?” Lance turned to Keith with exasperation. “What kind of exorcist are you? You don’t just stare at anything above a level two.”

Keith looked over his shoulder. Pidge and Hunk stood between Coran and a woman Keith hadn’t met. She wore her silver hair in a loose bun. Her youthful face smiled openly at him.

“Is this another investigator?” She asked.

“This is Keith,” Pidge answered. “He’s...” she tilted her head, searched for a word, and shrugged. “He’s consulting.”

“We might rethink that if he makes eyes at the phantom too many times,” Lance added, arms crossed high on his chest.

Keith decided it wasn’t the time to argue that a residual haunting shouldn’t be able to harm a living person. A ghost needed autonomy to corrupt a human regardless of what the Garrison taught.

“Allura is the current hotel owner,” Pidge said, motioning toward the woman with silver hair. “She hired us.”

“My father took ownership twenty years ago and renamed it Altea. I inherited it six years ago,” Allura repeated the information Keith had already read in the file.

“What happened to the original owner?” Keith asked.

“A man named Zarkon built the hotel,” Coran said. “He lived on the top floor—this one—with his family until he passed away. He left the hotel to his business partner and Allura’s father, Alfor.”

“You thinking it’s the old man Zarkon?” Lance lowered his arms and pointed at the opened folder in Keith’s hands. “He’s on page ten, by the way.”

Keith closed the folder. Something floated in the back of his head but he couldn’t grasp at the thought long enough to understand it.

“Anyway,” Pidge said. “Hunk and I need to set up equipment.”

 

* * *

 

“We don’t have to bother with who it is,” Lance declared. They stood around a table in the business conference room farthest from the elevators that would be their temporary base of operations.

“I thought having a name made it easier to exorcise.” Hunk plugged in a surge protector and placed it on the table.

“It does.” Lance dropped into a chair. “But I could open a gateway and exorcise it without a name.”

“We need to gather data on it first.” Pidge opened a laptop. “The last team lost everything, so it’s up to us. You can’t exorcise it until the Garrison is happy.”

“A level four needs a name,” Hunk said to Lance. “Your gateway won’t cleanse something that deep set without a name.”

Lance sighed and relented. “You’re right. We’ll get Pidge’s data and the name, and have the hotel cleansed before the weekend.” He leaned across the table and tapped the folder that held Keith’s attention. “Have you decided to help?”

Keith glanced up. “The phantom in this hotel isn’t normal. I can’t explain it, but something isn’t right.”

“Anomaly sort of means not normal,” Lance said. “This memory stain is violent and needs to be removed before too much energy is gathered. Did you read the incidents? Page 19.”

“Yes. Something tried to drown two different guests on separate occasions.”

“Still think a little sage will fix this one?”

“No. But it could help. Hotel hauntings are difficult to cleanse. There are too many sources of energy.”

“Human guests are the best batteries,” Lance agreed. “Only next to sex—which is still human and very common in hotels. It’s the best location for a specter.”

“This ghost isn’t going to leave without a fight,” Keith said. “I don’t think it has a connection to the floor or violent memories. Fear is one of the quickest way for a ghost to recharge.”

Lance sighed and lost his enthusiasm. “Again ‘ghost’ isn’t an approved term, and it has to have a connection because it can only be a memory of violence on repeat. Something happened on this floor—”

“No. That’s the strange part. It anchored here, but it isn’t originally from here.”

Lance sighed heavier and rubbed his temples “‘Anchored’ is also not approved terminology because it implies the phantom has thought. Which it doesn’t. Because memories do not have autonomy.”

“I’m not implying the ghost has autonomy. I’m saying it does.”

Lance sat back. “Are you one of those exorcists who claim they can talk with phantoms? Those types usually go off the deep end, leave the Garrison, and go on daytime talk shows to find missing kids.”

Keith looked back to Lance’s research and flipped the page. “I haven’t gone off the deep end.”

“You left the Garrison.”

“Many do.”

“Do you talk to the dead?” Lance asked with the faintest hint of sarcasm.

Keith gave him a glare. “I don’t think this ghost will talk to anyone.”

Lance pushed away from the desk with a low groan and looked at Pidge. “Was he always like this? How can we write anything he says in an official report?”

Keith had once followed Garrison rules and teachings because Shiro had. Even if something didn’t fit, he’d bend it until it did. But that was before Shiro came back and broke every rule ever taught by 40 years of research.

“Um.” Pidge studied Keith. “We’ll make it work. We still haven’t told Iverson we’re consulting with Keith, so if we have to leave out anything he says, that’s your job, Lance. You’re the head exorcist on this team.” Lance scoffed but offered no argument.

“I’m going.” Keith stood.

“Where?” Lance asked. “If you plan to help us, we’re a team so you can’t just—hey, are you even listening?”

Keith slipped into the hallway and let the door block Lance’s dismay. Keith’s footsteps sounded muted down the hallway. He stopped at the elevator and glanced over his shoulder at the shadow at the end of the hall.

“I’m coming back,” Keith warned. He couldn’t make out facial features, but knew it had smiled in response. The challenge sent a chill up his spine. 

 

* * *

 

At his kitchen table, Keith researched the hotel’s history and property ownership until the sun set and his eyes hurt. He pushed away his laptop and rubbed his temples. He wondered if he should try to sleep.

The light over the sink flickered. It blinked out twice and returned. Keith looked at the doorway and smiled at Shiro.

“You look exhausted,” Shiro said.

Keith felt exhausted. “I’m fine.”

“Are you researching Pidge’s case?” Shiro moved closer and touched the back of his fingers to Keith’s cheek. Solid, icy fingers.

“Yeah.” Keith took his hand. It was nice to feel him again, even if he was too cold to fool Keith into a happier lie. “I didn’t check my pockets. Did you hitch a ride to the hotel?”

“You didn’t want me to, so I didn’t.” Shiro pushed his hand through Keith’s hair. “How’d it go?”

“I don’t like anomalies, and I don’t think I can be much help. Lance is capable of handling it.” He paused and reflected on the statement. “Probably.”

“Tell me about the anomaly.”

Keith took a breath. “I don’t have much to say. I don’t know why it’s there or who it used to be. I’m not sure I want to find out.”

Shiro knelt beside Keith. “You used to chase gut feelings. What’s it telling you now?”

“I don’t have one this—” Keith dropped his argument. He did have one, he just didn’t understand it. “Anomalies aren’t like usual hauntings. It was just as difficult three months ago, and I was wrong then.”

“No. You managed then, and you’ll manage now. Pidge asked for your help because you’re an excellent exorcist.”

“I always had you with me.” Keith studied Shiro’s eyes and the lack of light reflection. “You made me better than I really am.”

“I’m still with you.”

Keith swallowed. It wasn’t the same. Shiro had been the glue that kept his world together. As a disembodied soul, it was only a matter of time before that world crumbled around Keith. He could hold up a wall at a time, but eventually there would be nothing but debris.

He touched Shiro’s cheek. He was opaque, a little too pale, with a slight glow around the edges, but he looked real enough for Keith to pretend everything was fine. “I need you to kiss me.”

Shiro smiled in that way that said he understood Keith’s emotional state better than Keith. He’d been able to read his walls and lies like a second language, and the talent continued without a beating heart.

“I’ll give you anything you need.”

 

* * *

 

The chill in the air and Shiro’s cold touch contrasted Keith’s heated skin and rapid heartbeat. He twisted the blanket beneath him in his fist and rolled his hips. An elevated heart rate produced enough energy to turn a flickering shadow in a doorway into the Shiro Keith once knew—just without the distinctly living human features like breath or warmth.

But it was enough. Shiro would always be enough.

Shiro kissed his inner thigh, and Keith hissed through his teeth. It felt like ice. He covered the resulting shiver by arching his back. The cold was fine. It was a part of Shiro now.

“What do you need?” Shiro’s voice sounded next to his ear, but he knelt between his legs with two fingers searching again for the perfect spot inside.

“You.” Keith’s request came out as an irritated demand. It amused Shiro how he couldn’t keep his frustration out of his tone during intimate moments.

Shiro wrapped Keith’s legs around him and let Keith set the pace. Keith didn’t like to give verbal cues, so Shiro had learned to read the subtle ways he dug his heels into Shiro’s back.

It had taken Keith time to adjust to Shiro’s new form. Aside from the coldness and what felt like a low electrical current between them, nothing had changed. Sex with a ghost had a large mental hurdle, but a miniscule physical one.

“You good?” Shiro asked.

“Yeah.” Keith shifted his hips, feeling Shiro inside. Cold. But still Shiro. Keith shivered and Shiro began to move.

Shiro had always been able to pick him apart thread by thread and reassemble him in a way that made him feel more alive. The pleasure points Keith didn’t know he had, Shiro knew. Even without a pulse, he remembered every attraction marked on the map of Keith’s body.

Keith ran his hands over Shiro’s arms and back, revisiting old memories of sweat slicked skin and heavy breaths. Each roll of Shiro’s hips forced the past further away in favor of present pleasure.

Shiro mouthed at his neck. Keith whined softly and met his thrusts, digging his heels into the small of Shiro’s back. His request was met. Shiro picked up his pace, pushing deeper. Keith kept one hand on Shiro’s bicep and the other wrapped around his cock.

“Please, Keith,” Shiro whispered with his lips against Keith’s chin. “Take what you need.”

Keith pushed his head back and came, clinging onto Shiro who now experienced pleasure outside of physical touch. Keith’s orgasm wasn’t Shiro’s, but it was close enough.

Shiro whispered his affection between gentle kisses. Keith could fool himself that it was three months earlier until his breath fogged between them. He kissed the side of Shiro’s mouth and imagined he still tasted how he used to. The changes didn’t bother him much. They meant a second chance at a lifetime they wouldn’t have.


	4. Interview the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Shiro: ghost hunting team~  
> also Keith talks to a new ghost and Lance tags along

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to update earlier...I haven't even sent this to my beta. All errors are my own and probably the fault of auto-correct or swype.
> 
> Thank you for reading ♡ and for the comments. ♡♡

**Chapter Four**

Exhaustion weighed on Keith like a heavy blanket, pulling at the edges of his vision, but he fought against it. It was rare to have Shiro fully materialized and he wanted every moment he could have.

He rested his head on Shiro's chest and curled a leg over his. The cuddle was colder than he preferred, but the chill would help keep him awake. He couldn't hear a heartbeat where there used to be one. Instead of a rhythm of two, his heart beat for the both of them. It was a romantic notion, but a lonely reality. Keith moved his head to Shiro's shoulder.

"You should rest," Shiro said.

"I am resting."

"You need sleep, Keith. Real sleep."

His tone was serious, but light enough Keith knew he could win the argument. "I'll sleep at sunrise."

Shiro touched his arm and kissed the top of his head. "How did the research go?"

Keith snorted. Even dead, Shiro still thought work was appropriate pillow talk. "I looked into the location, but it didn't help. The anomaly didn't originate from there."

"Is that a gut feeling?"

Keith sat up. The side pressed against Shiro had gone numb and needed a break. "I guess. I don't know."

"I thought Lance researched the location. What did you hope to find?"

"I don't know," Keith repeated. "There's something missing but..." he shrugged. He couldn't explain his thoughts.

"What's the first thing you do when you start a case?" Shiro sat up and found Keith's gaze.

"Interview witnesses," Keith answered. "But Lance did that too. He even chased down the near drowning victims. He was thorough. That's what's frustrating. I have everything I need, but I feel like I'm missing something."

Shiro touched Keith's knee. "You have access to other possible witnesses Lance won't interview. Ones you and I wouldn't have talked with either."

Keith stared at Shiro for a moment before he understood. "You want me to interview ghosts?"

"Hotels are usually filled with them. We now know they aren't all memory loops. One might even know something."

"I'd look insane."

"Keith." Shiro smiled. It bordered on a full, contained grin. "You just had sex with a ghost. How would a conversation with one make you look any more insane?"

Keith turned his head and chuckled. "Alright. I'll interview some ghosts." Suddenly Pidge's case felt like work. It felt like Keith's case, which had always included Shiro. "Come with me.”

"You wanted me to stay away from the anomaly," Shiro reminded.

"Don't go to the fourteenth floor."

Shiro smiled and shifted closer. "Do you want me to ask the other ghosts about their top floor neighbor in your place?"

"Wouldn't that be better than an exorcist? They'd trust—" Keith dropped his sentence.

"They'd trust one of their own," Shiro finished his thought for him. "You're right. I'll help you interview the dead."

 

* * *

 

"I would've preferred if you'd have slept first," Shiro said next to Keith's ear. He'd parked his motorcycle on the sidewalk near Hotel Altea's entrance. The bellman eyed him warily but stood out of ear shot.

"It's only midnight. I said I'll sleep at sunrise." Keith removed his helmet and shivered in the winter air. He couldn't see Shiro but felt his presence, anchored to the ring in his front pocket. "I'll ask the front desk about any haunted rooms. That might be the quickest way."

"You should ask the person who hired the Garrison. They'll believe it's related and be more honest."

Keith heard Shiro's suggestion next to him. The plan was unorthodox, but so was having a ghost as a fiancé. "Right. Let's go."

The lobby was well-lit and well-heated. Keith had spent three months in coldness and found regular indoor temperature too warm. It also made him realize how tired he was. The warmth wrapped around him and proposed a deep sleep.

Keith shook off the desire and started toward the front desk but paused when he heard his name.

"Keith." Lance waved at him from the elevator and approached. Keith sighed and held his ground. "Listen, if you're going to consult, I need you to work with the team,” Lance berated in a tone that spoke of his inexperience at reprimand. “You can't just show up or leave whenever you feel like it."

"Sorry." Keith's apology was stiff and made Lance's frown deepen. He looked away and added, "I'm here to help."

"Fine. Whatever." Lance exhaled and scratched the side of his head. "Is that your roommate?"

Keith followed Lance's gaze and caught a glimpse of Shiro in the bar. "No. Come on." He bumped into Lance, turning him away from the lobby and toward the front desk. "Is Coran or Allura still here?"

"They don't work 24 hours." Lance followed with his hands jammed into his front pockets. At some point between the afternoon and now, he’d lost his tie and added a few wrinkles to his suit. "But I just talked to Coran about the building's electrical plan, so I know he's in the office.”

"Why are you asking about electrical plans?"

"I'm ruling out interference sources. Pidge pulled a plan from the city, but I wanted to check for any updates not listed. They just remodeled so the one on file might be outdated."

"Smart," Keith muttered and Lance shrugged.

The woman at the front desk led them into the management’s office behind the counter. Coran greeted them with a stifled yawn and less enthusiasm than he’d shown in that afternoon.

"Are there any other haunted rooms in the hotel?" Keith asked and ignored how Lance shook his head and turned away, clearly disappointed by how Keith had stepped out of Garrison procedures again.

"Other haunted rooms?" Coran mulled the question over. "Not like upstairs, no."

"Any strange activity," Keith elaborated. "It wouldn't be at the same level. Maybe a room with frequent guest complaints about something small."

Coran stroked his moustache. "We do get complaints about the AC unit in room 303 coming on at night. It isn't every guest, but it's enough to no longer be a surprise. We've had it serviced multiple times, but nothing is wrong."

"Can I see the room?"

"Do you think it's related?"

"No. I'm curious about something else."

"Well. Okay then." Coran stretched his back. "The room should be empty. Just give me a moment to get you a key, and you can look at the AC unit yourself." Coran left the room. Lance turned toward Keith and crossed his arms but said nothing.

 

* * *

 

"I know you're not here on Garrison time, but what are you doing?" Lance followed Keith into the elevator.

"I'm looking for ghosts." Keith pressed the 3rd floor button. "Are you going back to 14?"

Lance studied Keith with arms crossed. "No. Why are you looking for phantoms when we already have a problem one?"

Keith shrugged. He touched Shiro's ring in his pocket. "Are you able to feel the presence of ghosts, or only see them?"

"I see them,” Lance answered. The question was common among exorcists at the Garrison. It typically followed an exchange of names during an introduction. “It's pretty rare to have both traits. The gossip at the Garrison says you can do both. Is that true?"

"Yes. I was born seeing ghosts, but someone taught me how to sense them."

"Impressive." Lance lowered his arms. "It isn't easy to learn that if you have the ability to see."

It hadn't been easy, but Keith wouldn't have let Shiro waste his time. “I had an excellent teacher.”

“Huh” was the only response Lance had.

They finished the ride in silence and made their way down the hallway on the third floor. Keith opened room 303 and Lance spoke again.

“Phantoms are everywhere,” Lance said. “If you can sense them, how do you ignore them?”

Keith looked over his shoulder, preparing to disregard the question. It was basic knowledge covered in the Garrison academy, but there was no harm in conversation. “Even Pidge could feel the anomaly upstairs if it wanted her to. Since I learned later in life, I have to focus to sense them.” His bond with Shiro had given him a constant background sense of Shiro’s proximity, but that situation wasn’t normal.

“I’m going to ignore that ‘want’ part.” Lance pushed opened the bathroom’s door. “How do you sense a phantom, then?”

“It’s similar to controlling a gateway. You utilize your energy, and send it outward.” Keith circled the king size bed and touched the AC unit. He felt nothing in the room. Not even a lingering trace of something.

“So it’s like radar for the dead?”

“I guess. If the anchor is known, there’s no need to cast a wide net.” Keith touched his front pocket. “The anchor is a direct link to the ghost and is always sensed through it.”

“Right. Anchor. I’m going to ignore that too.” Lance stepped into the bathroom. "Hello? Any ghosts in here?"

Keith took a few breaths. He was tired. Too tired. Shiro walked through the west wall and touched his shoulder. "Did you see anything?" Keith whispered. Shiro shook his head. "Check the neighboring rooms."

Shiro left through the east wall just as Lance exited the bathroom. "Are you really looking for more phantoms in the hotel?"

"Yes." Keith crossed to the east wall. "Check the hallway, Lance."

“Wha—?” Lance balked at the order but threw up his hands in defeat and went into the hallway.

Shiro poked his head through the wall near Keith’s position. "There's nothing on this floor. It’s statistically rare, but it isn’t impossible."

Keith nodded. Their plan wasn't going well. "Can you check the building to the north without getting lost?"

"If I get lost, I'll return to my anchor."

"Okay. Go. But be back in thirty minutes."

"You know time doesn't work for me anymore."

Keith smiled. "Right. Sorry." Shiro slipped away and Keith put his hand on the wall.

"How long am I supposed to check the hall?" Lance reentered the room. "I hope you don’t plan to exorcise phantoms for free. If they're not a problem, it's okay to leave them. You’ll wear yourself out if you cleanse every apparition you come across."

“I don’t plan to exorcise anything.” Keith turned and left the room.

 

* * *

 

Keith ignored the stream of irritated questions from Lance who shadowed him all the way into the south neighboring building. The bar was dimly lit and almost empty. No one turned their heads and looked at them when they entered.

"This is crazy," Lance complained and rubbed his arms against the winter night that clung to them after the short walk from Hotel Altea. "How were you considered the best exorcist at the Garrison?"

"Just look for a ghost." 

"Yeah, yeah. I'll help with your boo-shit errand." Lance saddled up to a nearby waitress to compliment her eyes—the most beautiful ones he’d ever seen. Keith skirted the bar and headed for the back wall. He searched the room for the presence of something no longer living. Exhaustion rolled over him, and he reached out and held the back of a chair to steady himself.

“Got one.” Lance tapped his shoulder and pointed to the opposite corner.

Keith straightened and saw her. She was young, smoking a cigarette, and slightly transparent. The tables around her were empty. Keith changed directions and sat down across from her. Lance hung back a step.

Keith had left interviews up to Shiro or Pidge, so he was more than a little rusty. "Do you know anything about the hotel next door?" He tried to mimic Shiro’s soft tone that had disarmed and won over many living witnesses.

Lance sighed and dropped into the third chair at the table. "What are you doing? Residual hauntings can't communicate.”

Keith shot Lance a glare and looked back at the woman who had faded. "There's something on the top floor," Keith said. "Do you know anything about it?"

She flickered and looked directly at Keith. "There's a monster there that eats pretty things like me."

Lance inhaled. Keith leaned forward. "Eats what?"

The woman vanished, leaving a fresh scent of cigarette smoke. Keith searched for her presence but she was gone.

"That was good timing," Lance murmured. "But there’s no way an apparition answered a question in this setting. It’s coincidence.”

“She said there’s a monster that eats things like her.” Keith touched his front pocket and felt Shiro’s ring. “Hotel Altea has no other hauntings. What if the anomaly is eating ghosts?”

“First of all, we don’t know the hotel is completely empty of other hauntings. But if it is, there’s an explanation for that: it might have had a cleansing within the last few years.”

It was possible. And provable. "If they used the Garrison, I want to see those records."

“And secondly”—Lance continued without acknowledging Keith's statement—“Phantoms do not eat other phantoms. That’s as absurd as believing one could answer a question.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a new POV next chapter. That mystery tag will be justified soon. (i hope)


	5. Warmth Remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Pidge have a discussion...and Shiro gets a name for the ghost ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to update a while ago but I go SO sick. Sick enough where I haven't written a damn thing in weeks...so chapter 6 might be late too. I'm trying! My outline has gotten away from me.

**Chapter Five**

Lance returned to the top floor and headed into their temporary base of operation. Pidge looked up from her laptop which provided the only light in the business conference room.

“Did you get lost?” She asked.

“No. I ran into Keith downstairs and tagged along on a ghost hunt.” Lance shut the door and stepped around the hotel-provided cot currently occupied by a sleeping Hunk.

“You went on a ghost—?” Pidge shook her head. “Never mind. Is he still here?”

“No. He said something about the hotel not being safe for someone and took off despite my protest that a motorcycle in winter is a death wish.”

“The hotel isn’t safe for who?”

“I have no idea, but I think he left his roommate in the hotel bar.”

“Keith doesn’t have a roommate.”

“I’m pretty sure he does.” Lance grabbed one of the coffee mugs Coran had brought up with a bowl of fruit. “Has he always talked to phantoms?”

Pidge frowned as she decided which statement she’d respond to. “Keith wasn’t the typical exorcist, but I never saw him communicate with phantoms.”

“Well, he does now.” Lance picked his way over equipment and wires to the coffee machine on a credenza behind Pidge.

“That’s...concerning.” Pidge turned her chair toward Lance. “He’s had a rough few months. It might just be stress or something. He’s a really good exorcist. I promise he won’t hinder the case.”

“I’m not saying he shouldn’t be here, but he’s really weird, Pidge.” Lance poured coffee into his mug and sat down beside her. “Did you get those electrical plans from Coran?”

“Yeah. He emailed them like you instructed.” Pidge turned her laptop so Lance could see the screen. “I’ve already converted them into my program and plugged in our sensor locations. Luckily none of our placements need to be moved.” She minimized the two live video feeds and opened the program from the desktop.

Lance sat forward and pointed at the screen. “You know Keith’s roommate.”

Pidge frowned, minimized the program, and brought back the desktop wallpaper of a younger Pidge between Keith and a taller man Lance met at Keith’s the day before. They stood in front of the staircase in the Garrison’s front lobby.

“That’s Shiro,” Pidge said. “He was Keith’s fiancé.”

“Oh. The ex.” Lance chucked and scratched the side of his nose. “I thought he was a roommate and told Keith to hook up with him as a rebound. If he took my advice, it probably made things worse. Or they were back together already.”

“Uh. Yeah, okay. That’s not possible.” Pidge rubbed her forehead but offered no further explanation.

Hunk rolled over and sat up with a groan. “It’s not easy to sleep in a haunted area.” He rubbed his face. “The dreams are crazy.”

Pidge slid a notebook and pen toward the end of the table. “Write down what you remember.”

“Right.” Hunk flicked on a nearby lamp. “Did I hear Lance say he told Keith to hook up with his dead fiancé? That’s going to be an awkward follow up apology, dude.”

“Dead?” Lance looked at Pidge. “He’s dead? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “I did tell you. You assumed I meant a breakup.”

“But you said Keith lost—” Lance realized his misunderstanding and dropped his defense. “Oh. Right.”

“Lance, you saw a phantom at Keith’s and didn’t know it was an apparition?” Hunk opened the notebook. “That’s not very best-current-exorcist-at-the-Garrison of you.”

“Hey. He looked alive at the time,” Lance defended. “And I was distracted by the subzero temperature Keith keeps his house.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Pidge asked.

“He didn’t speak. He didn’t really acknowledge me.” Lance realized how it sounded. In hindsight, it was obviously a haunting.

“Oh, man.” Hunk chuckled. “I’m going to tell everyone.”

Lance ignored the tease and looked at Pidge’s desktop. “This means Keith is living with a memory loop.”

“Maybe it isn’t intentional. He’s been pretty adamant about never opening another gateway,” Pidge said, picking at her laptop cover.

“He could’ve asked anyone at the Garrison for a favor.”

Pidge maximized her program and blocked the photo. “Keith will cleanse the haunting when he’s ready.”

“An echo of a person isn’t going to help him move on.” Lance rested his forearms on the table and studied his coffee. “How did Shiro die?”

“It happened on a case.” Pidge’s tone told Lance to leave it alone, but he rarely listened to subtle hints.

“We were told it was an accident,” Lance said. “He fell or something.”

“That’s in the official report I signed”—Pidge shot him a warning glance—”along with a few NDAs. If you ask Keith what happened, he’d say it was his unstable gateway. I have no idea what happened, so I agree with the Garrison’s determination.”

Lance rubbed his chin. “Did Keith leave because of guilt? I don’t know him as well as you, but that doesn’t seem right.” He leaned closer and Pidge looked away. “To me, he seems pretty angry with the Garrison. It’s as if he blames the Garrison for why the case went wrong.”

“It was nothing so sinister. Keith fought against their official statement about Shiro and lost. Then his resignation was denied. I’d be upset to.”

“I wasn’t aware a resignation could be denied.”

“Keith can’t work for a competitor if he’s still on payroll.”

“What competitor?” Lance scoffed and sat back. He couldn’t imagine the Garrison cared what exorcists did after they left, or what freelancers did to the dead. There was quite a few who spoke out against their procedures and education with no repercussion. But none of that mattered at the moment. “Keith’s last case was an anomaly on Melrose Court. Is Shiro’s death related?”

“How do you know what Keith’s last case was?”

“He’s my rival. I keep tabs.”

“Of course.” Pidge brought up the video feeds from the swimming pool and hallway. She watched nothing happen for a while until she spoke again. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I remember from that night.”

“You breaking a non-disclose agreement is the highlight of my year.”

Pidge cleared her throat. “We went to the house on Melrose to exorcise the anomaly. Keith had researched the property and decided it was a prior resident. Keith had a name, but it somehow avoided his gateway. It even forcefully closed one. Shiro called it an attack.”

“An attack,” Lance repeated. “Only the exorcist holding it can touch a gateway.”

Pidge nodded, she’d attended the same training as Lance. They all had. “Shiro became a researcher with the gateway team when Keith took over as head exorcist of the team. So I believed his claim that the phantom attacked using Keith’s gateway energy.”

“If that’s possible, wouldn’t the Garrison have warned us about it?” Lance asked.

“I don’t know.”

Lance sighed. None of his acquaintances at the Garrison worked in gateway research. If he wanted confirmation, it’ll be tricky to get. “So what happened next?”

“Shiro instructed Keith to open another gateway and opened one himself. I can’t see gateways or phantoms, but from the equipment readings and Keith’s statement, the anomaly redirected the energy from both gateways. It threw Keith and Shiro into a glass cabinet and took most of the equipment offline. That’s when Keith used an unstable gateway to cleanse the house. When it was over, Shiro was...” Pidge stopped and rubbed her eyes. “He was gone.”

“I’m sorry.” Lance understood the grief in Pidge’s voice and decided to end the conversation. “No wonder Keith won’t open another gateway.” He thumbed a crack in the handle of the coffee mug. He didn’t know Keith very well, but a residual haunting wasn’t beneficial to anyone’s sanity. It could even explain why Keith tried to talk with a phantom at the bar. “We’re going to finish this case first, and then we’re going to deal with Keith’s haunted house.”

“Okay.” Pidge stared at the video feeds. After a moment she frowned and looked at Lance. “If Shiro’s a residual haunting in Keith’s house, how did you see him downstairs?”

 

* * *

 

It was difficult to see. Shapes faded and formed in something that resembled what Shiro remembered as fog, but it behaved strange and unnatural. Rules that governed the living world didn’t apply to the dead.

Shiro had been without the fog after sex with Keith. The more energy he gathered, the easier it was to see through or disperse the haze, but he could no longer feel Keith’s presence either. Keith had left the hotel. Maybe Shiro’s thirty minutes were up.

He navigated to the end of the hallway and pressed himself through the exterior wall with some effort. Brick was denser than wood and not Shiro’s favorite barrier to cross. With enough concentration and exertion he slipped back into the sidewalk outside. If he’d been weaker, he might’ve needed to find a door to pass through.

The street didn’t resemble how Shiro remembered a city street should look, but so many of his memories had faded already, and the fog completely obscured anything beyond the nearest curb. The mist encroached on Shiro’s position, but the moon still illuminated the world with an unwavering stillness.

Shiro caught sight of the silver thread that shone in the moonlight. One end went into his chest, and at the other would be the gold ring Keith presented to him on a warm Sunday morning in their kitchen with pancake batter smudged on his cheek. Shiro could still remember the mixed emotions of hope and fear in Keith’s eyes. Later, he’d confessed he expected Shiro to say it was too soon. The lightness in Keith’s laughter when Shiro had said yes remained as clear as if recorded and preserved in high definition.

He plucked the thread from the air and held it in his fingers. It had no weight to it but hummed with a steady rhythm that resembled a heartbeat. Shiro hadn’t figured out if it was Keith’s or a mimicked version of something he’d eventually forget the feel of beneath his skin. He still longed for life, but that longing had faded with his memories. Now he worried what he’d become if he lingered too long, but he refused to pressure Keith too much about a gateway. His desire to stay outweighed his obligation to leave.

Closing his eyes, Shiro let the thread draw him back to his anchor. After only a moment he stood in their bedroom. Back in Keith’s proximity, the fog receded. It no longer obstructed his vision but it remained at the edge of his perception. The thread entered the bedside table where Keith kept Shiro’s ring. His anchor wasn’t with Keith anymore but Keith couldn’t be far. Shiro moved downstairs in search of him.

Even at his weakest and in the densest fog, Shiro could spot Keith. A fire burned inside him, and the light carried through walls and across distances. Shiro was drawn to the flame like a moth. It gave him what he needed but dwindled each time Shiro took energy from Keith. Even dimmed, it still remained the brightest thing in Shiro’s world of blanched colors and never-ending night.

Keith was seated at the kitchen table, hunched over his laptop. His flame flickered weaker than Shiro had seen before. He’d forgotten many things connected to the living, but emotions persisted the strongest, and guilt had become his constant companion in the afterlife.

Shiro watched Keith for a moment before he looked at the light over the sink and caused it to blink twice. Whenever he could, he announced his arrival in an unobtrusive way. Before Keith looked up, Shiro slipped through the veil separating his world from Keith’s world of life and color. Even gifted humans like Keith couldn’t see Shiro unless he intentionally or unintentionally crossed that line into the world that was no longer his. How much could be seen relied on how much energy Shiro wanted or had to consume.

“You need sleep,” Shiro said and Keith smiled. It held no humor and crumbled quickly.

“It isn’t sunrise yet.”

Shiro didn’t like the excuse. “You’re weaker than normal.”

“Did you find anything?”

The avoidance was noted, but Shiro had lost his ability to drag Keith to bed when he lost substance and a pulse. “Yes. Maybe. I was warned the entity currently residing in the hotel consumes ghosts in order to increase its own energy.”

“I heard something similar. Is that even possible?”

Shiro hadn’t witnessed such a thing, and hoped he never would, but the dead he talked to said it was. “Yes.”

“Strange. It’s in a hotel with plenty of energy sources.”

Shiro moved closer and traced Keith’s cheek with the back of two fingers. The gesture created the only sensation Shiro remembered as warmth. “Please rest, Keith. I know you’ll fight me on this, but it’s in my best interest if you sleep.” He hated to use himself as leverage but knew it was Keith’s weak spot.

Keith looked at him for a moment and relented. “Okay.” He shut his laptop and stood. “Were you able to find a name?”

Shiro had heard a name. A familiar one. He couldn’t say why it rang in his head as one he knew, but many things caused a similar response. “The ghost we’ve been calling an anomaly is named Lotor.”

Keith stopped at the kitchen entrance and turned back. Recognition and surprise spilled across his tired features and Shiro once again tried to remember the name.

“Are you sure?” Keith asked.

“Yes.” As he said it, Shiro felt the tug of a memory. He’d known the name, but only on paper: Keith’s handwritten notes for the Melrose Court case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No body surprised by the name.
> 
> Thank you for reading! ٩(♡ε♡ )۶


	6. Internal Wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith tells the team who the ghost is, and Lance tries to exorcise Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a lot of dialogue and world building...with some hints of what to come. ♥  
> no beta ~ all mistakes are my own :)

**Chapter Six**

Lance watched the temperature readout as he slowly walked the length of the swimming pool with a handheld camera. Water gurgled in the filtration system and echoed unnaturally loud in the still space.

“The pool cleaning system is trying my patience,” Lance muttered. He glanced up at the far corner of ceiling. The situation hadn’t improved at sunrise which wasn’t altogether unexpected, but it was still unsettling.

The door opened and Keith stepped inside. He stopped with the handle in his grip and stared at the same spot that had held Lance’s attention a moment before.

“Keith’s here. Area sweep terminated at 7:32 am,” Lance noted for the camera but didn’t stop recording. He shoved a fist against his hip, and pointed the camera at Keith. He switched it to thermal. No trailing cold spot this time. “This is an active investigation, buddy. I’m busy. Why are you here?”

Keith gestured at the reason Lance wasn’t asleep in the cot for his full shift. “How long has that cloud been there?”

Lance sighed and turned the camera to the dark gray mass that showed as the coldest thing in the frame. “That regular occurrence in any haunting above a level two is the reason I’m awake at 7:30. We don’t know how long it’s been here, but it began to interfere with the surveillance camera around 7am, and something set off the motion detector five minutes later. I’m out of my beauty sleep two hours early, but it’s a bunch of ‘nothing much’ so far.”

“A mass of energy will play tricks on electronics.” Keith nodded toward the hallway. “I have something everyone needs to hear.”

“I thought we were consulting with you, but sure, you can call a team meeting.” Lance stopped recording, retraced his steps around the pool, and followed Keith into the hall. He wasn’t as sensitive to energies as someone with the ability to sense a phantom, but he could tell Keith was running on near empty. “Did you sleep at all?”

“A little.”

“Don’t be a liability. Can you even open a gateway right now?”

Keith answered with a glare and opened the conference room door.

Pidge looked up from her laptop and rubbed her eyes. “Keith? What are doing here?”

“Hey, Keith.” Hunk offered a wave from beside her. “Did you fix the live feed in the swimming pool, Lance?” Lance shook his head and dropped into the chair across from him. The smell of fresh coffee promised a caffeine kick, but he hoped for a nap within the next hour.

Keith faced Pidge. “Remember the case on Melrose Court?”

“Yeah.” Pidge glanced at Lance and back to Keith. “What about it?”

“The Melrose Court anomaly relocated to Hotel Altea.”

“That’s impossible, Keith. You exorcised it.” Pidge stood and straightened her shirt. She’d replaced her work-approved slacks for jeans the night before but still managed to look more professional than Lance did in a fresh suit.

“Obviously I didn’t. One of the prior residents was Zarkon’s widow. She lived there with their son, Lotor.”

“Zarkon?” Lance shifted through the junk on the table until he found the case file.

Pidge inhaled and crossed her arms. “I don’t know, Keith. That’s not known behavior. Phantoms just aren’t transferable to new locations.”

“The problems at this hotel started after Melrose Court was supposedly cleansed,” Keith argued.

“The problems here started after renovations,” Lance cut in. “Which is a common way hauntings begin.”

Keith’s fingers curled into a fist and he looked at the table. “It isn’t coincidence. I recognize the anomaly, and now I know it left that house and came here.”

Lance propped his chin in his palm and played devil’s advocate. “Okay, Keith. Let’s pretend phantoms can move locations. Convince us why one would leave the original point of haunting?”

“I don’t know the motivation,” Keith started quietly. “But maybe we chased him to a new location.”

“So if a phantom—anomaly or not—could change locations, it would because it has a preference,” Lance paraphrased and Keith shrugged. Lance caught Pidge’s gaze. It was beyond farfetched and went against everything the Garrison had proved as reality.

Pidge rubbed her chin. “Keith, even if it was possible, there’s no way you chased the Melrose anomaly to a new location. The equipment confirmed an exorcism.”

“No. It’s obvious the gateway didn’t work. It was all for nothing.” Pain underlined Keith’s words.

Pidge typed into her laptop. “We can wrap the case up tonight if we ignore all the talk about Melrose Court and just go with Keith’s gut that this anomaly is Zarkon. I think we have enough haunting evidence for the Garrison researchers to be happy.”

“I’ll need a nap before I go against this thing with gateways,” Lance said. “So have Hunk repair any video surveillance or equipment. He’s tech anyway.”

“It’s not Zarkon,” Keith said. “It’s his son, Lotor.”

“His son?” Lance glanced at his research. The son had been young when his father died. It would be unusual for the child to have a connection to the hotel now. “How on earth did you decide that?”

Keith touched the table and cleared his throat. “I asked a ghost.”

“You can’t be serious.” Lance rubbed his eyes until he saw stars. Keith might’ve been considered the best exorcist at the Garrison, but he now sounded crazy and could cause more than a few wrinkles to Lance’s forehead. “How has the Garrison not fired you?”

“Not every ghost is a memory loop,” Keith said with more than a little indignation. “Some have as much consciousness as a living person.”

Lance had no idea where to begin to process that statement. It was ludicrous. The Garrison had proved hauntings to be shadows of the past more than thirty years before. Argument in the contrary had died ten years after. The only ones who claimed ghosts were anything different were usually frauds or hospitalized.

“I’ve seen phantoms my whole life,” Lance said. “And they aren’t like living humans.”

“Whatever.” The single word was wrapped with aggravation but tied with a pretty bow of passivity. Lance wondered if he was as tired of Lance arguing with him as Lance was. “You can use the name or not.”

Keith said goodbye to Pidge and left. The room fell silent. Pidge sighed and pushed away her laptop. Lance crossed his arms.

“Have you ever tried to talk to a ghost?” Hunk asked and Lance sputtered.

“No! Why would I? Are you taking Keith’s side?”

“There’s no side,” Hunk said calmly. “But I mean. Keith seems pretty convinced by it. Maybe he’s experienced something rare enough the Garrison doesn’t lecture about.”

“It isn’t rare. It’s impossible.”

“People used to talk to ghosts,” Hunk pointed out. “Ouija boards and séances were popular for centuries. Oh! Spirit boxes and the flashlight game are still Garrison approved.”

“Spirit boxes echo words spoken by residual energy,” Pidge corrected without emotion. “As for the flashlight game: a fluctuation in energy level in the environment will cause a coincidental light flash. In its current form it’s useless to an investigation. We have better equipment now.”

“So...not Garrison approved.” Hunk nodded and picked up his phone from the table. “I still think it isn’t as crazy as it sounds. People used to do it.”

“Yeah, well.” Pidge rubbed her eyes. “People used to do a lot of crazy stuff before technology and science.”

Lance thought back to their earlier conversation about Keith’s haunted house. That experience paired with grief might have caused a rift in his perception of reality. “Maybe the problem at Keith’s house is worse than we thought.” Lance lowered his arms and looked at Pidge. “What if that residual haunting altered his mental health?”

Pidge frowned. “I’ll talk to him.”

“I’ll go with you,” Lance offered. “Someone needs to cleanse the house. I’m tired, but we can do it today.”

 

* * *

 

Keith returned, slammed the door, and threw his helmet into the living room on his way up the stairs. Shiro followed but turned around in the landing as Keith trudged back downstairs. It was clear whatever discussion had planned with Pidge’s team hadn’t gone well.

Sunlight made him weak, and even though Keith kept every curtain in the house drawn, Shiro preferred to remain on his side of the veil until nightfall. The heavy weight caused by day was uncomfortable and reminded him that he was where he no longer belonged.

He sat down beside Keith at the kitchen table and touched the back of two fingers to his cheek. Keith sighed and leaned into the touch.

“I don’t know why I expected Garrison exorcists to believe me.” Keith squeezed his hand around a small object. Shiro couldn’t see the thread, but he knew Keith clasped his ring.

“You need to try again. You need a team,” Shiro said. “Lotor is too strong for you to freelance exorcise alone.”

“Alone,” Keith whispered. Even if he’d been made of glass, Shiro wouldn’t have been able to see his grief—not in the same way he could see his happiness or love. Grief was an internal wound that bled beneath a mask of sadness or acceptance. Shiro expected and understood that ache Keith endured, but it was a lonely suffering only he could experience.

Shiro was good at controlling his emotions. Keith wasn’t. He tried to touch Keith’s arm, to lessen the tension in his muscles caused by the force of holding emotions in check, but he passed through it. “I’m sorry.”

The veil between the living and dead wasn’t too difficult to slip through intentionally, and was even easy to slip through unintentionally. Despite the morning sunlight that filtered into the house, Shiro slipped under the veil and touched Keith’s hands. Keith studied his transparent form and wiped away a stray tear before it could reach his cheek.

The doorbell buzzed. Keith sat deaf to the intrusion until it sounded again. He shoved back his chair and walked away. Shiro glanced at his ring left on the kitchen table. It glinted silver despite the gold cast. He carefully moved his finger across the surface and found the thread secure. He’d mastered a few ghostly things, but moving his anchor point had eluded him. After another moment, he followed Keith into the hallway.

“Hey Keith.” Hunk came in first. Patted Keith’s shoulder and squeezed around him and into the living room. “Oh, nice place. The plastic and tape makes it very ‘murder-room’ but the paint cans bring together a more ‘DIY’ feel.”

Keith sighed and stood back for Pidge and Lance to invade his space next. Lance moved to the corner between front door and living room but Pidge took several steps toward the kitchen before she stopped and faced Keith.

“What are you doing here?” Keith closed the door.

“Keith,” Pidge started but faltered.

“Katie,” Shiro whispered from his side of the veil out of sight from Keith and Lance. He hadn’t spent much time wondering about Pidge, but seeing her now was a realization of his own form of grief.

“Lance saw Shiro,” Pidge said. “We know you have a residual haunting, and we agree it’s for the best if Lance cleanses—”

“Lance isn’t opening a gateway in here.” Keith crossed his arms.

“Oh, come on, Keith.” Lance took a step away from the wall. Keith held his ground on his approach. “You need this to move on. It isn’t healthy.”

“I won’t have you telling me what’s healthy.”

“Guys,” Pidge warned and Lance backed down with only a slight glare directed at Keith. “I know it hurts,” she continued for Keith’s benefit. “But he’s gone. You don’t need this reminder.”

Keith stared at Pidge as if she’d just committed the ultimate betrayal. “You don’t understand.”

Shiro expected he knew Pidge’s prepared arguments and Keith’s rebuttals, so he pushed himself through the hallway wall and observed Hunk pace the living room with a small electromagnetic field detector. It was muted, but the lights indicated Shiro’s presence. It had probably been constant since Hunk switched it on and appeared to be a false positive. Shiro returned to the hallway, stood between Lance and Keith, and listen to the continued argument.

If the team had arrived to exorcise him, he had two choices: take the gateway, or convince Lance everything he’d ever learned about the dead was wrong.

“You think I’m crazy,” Keith accused. Pidge looked away. The lack of denial spoke volumes.

“You got information from a ghost.” Lance punctuated the last three words to draw out just how crazy he believed Keith to be.

Keith scoffed but had no arguments in his favor. He might’ve believed it as much as Pidge and Lance.

Shiro passed through the veil and stood in front of Lance. Lance jerked away and collided with the wall behind him. His head made a thud where it connected with the plaster.

“Jeez.” Lance rubbed the back of his head and moved to Pidge’s side. “It’s daytime. Why’s the apparition so vivid?”

Keith looked at Shiro. “Shiro...?” the rest of his question hung in the air between them.

“It needs to happen,” Shiro said. Keith frowned but accepted the decision without argument.

“I already know the phantom’s name.” Lance cracked his knuckles. “It’ll be a piece of cake to cleanse your house.”

Keith shot forward and grabbed Lance’s arm, preventing him from lifting it to place a gateway. “You need to listen,” he said and nodded toward Shiro.

“I’m not residual, Lance.” It had been easy to convince Keith, but he didn’t know Lance. He didn’t have the words needed to convince him to ignore a lifetime of truth for an impossible. “Let me prove it.”

Lance squinted at Shiro and leaned toward Keith. “Your haunting is strange,” he whispered. “It could be another anomaly.”

Pidge sighed and looked at what she preserved to be an empty hallway. “What’s going on?”

“The hot roommate.” Lance gestured toward Shiro with his free arm. It was dismissive in a way Shiro wasn’t used to. “Look, Keith, let me open a gateway and—”

“No.” Keith’s grip on Lance’s arm tightened. Shiro hadn’t calmed any altercation. He needed to try harder.

“Your name is Lance McClain,” Shiro said, rushing his words. “You’re the head exorcist on Pidge’s team. You replaced Keith. I don’t know today’s date, but if you show me your phone, I’ll read it.”

Lance stared at Shiro’s form. After a long moment he took a step back and Keith released him. “Okay.” He took out his phone and watched Shiro move forward without steps. Shiro avoided electronics because they didn’t play nice with his current form and he drained batteries by proximity, but he read the date out loud and placed distance between him and the phone again. Lance studied the screen and sucked in a breath.

“Do you believe him?” Keith asked. “Shiro is like you or me but with less sustenance. He still has the same autonomy he had when alive.” Keith didn’t reach to restrain Lance again, but he repositioned himself between him and Shiro.

“Autonomy,” Lance murmured. “There’s no way a phantom—” he stopped and rubbed this forehead. After several seconds of silent contemplation he looked at Keith and then at Shiro.

“Tell me ‘Lance McClain is the best exorcist at the Garrison’ and I might believe all of this isn’t a coincidental paranormal echo.”

“Shiro is not repeating that,” Keith said. “Have some respect for the dead.”

“It’s definitely not something he would’ve said alive.” Lance’s argument was sound. Anything could be explained away by “coincidence” and Shiro needed Lance to believe.

“It’s fine, Keith.” Shiro moved closer and Lance took a startled step back. “Lance McClain is the best exorcist at the Garrison.”

Lance inhaled through his nose and blew out a soft string of curse words. “This isn’t good.”

“What’s happening?” Pidge demanded, finally reaching the end of her patience as the only one in the hallway without the ability to see Shiro. Hunk wandered through the kitchen and paused at the entrance of the hall.

“Keith’s haunting throws a wrench in our careers,” Lance answered with a hand on his forehead. He caught Hunk’s gaze.

“What?” Pidge gave Keith a glance.

“Shiro.” Lance leaned against the wall. “He’s not residual.”

Pidge looked at the empty hall and swallowed. “But that’s impossi—”

“Shiro’s here, Pidge,” Keith said. “He’s back.”

 

* * *

 

Ghosts had once been scary stories—fiction based on unexplained phenomenon. Science had determined ghosts were more fact than fiction, and once the Garrison had proved they were nothing but reflections of the past, they lost their fright factor and became the rare annoyance easily dealt with by a licensed exorcist.

But now Lance leaned against the wall in Keith’s kitchen and watched the light over the sink blink out answers to Pidge’s questions in Morse code. It was undeniable proof that ghosts were not what the Garrison had established.

Morse code was the most effective way Pidge could communicate with Shiro without Keith or Lance. It was also the only way she accepted the situation wasn’t a prank—but only after she and Hunk tested the light bulb and wiring. Two hours later, Pidge had asked Shiro if it was really him and he’d spelled out “missed you Katie.”

Lance exhaled and wandered into the plastic-covered living room and studied the torn wallpaper and stacked paint supplies dusty and abandoned in an unfinished renovation. He didn’t look up when Keith joined him and rested his hip against the covered couch.

“It’s freezing in here,” Lance muttered. “Aren’t you worried about your pipes? Fix your furnace already.”

“It isn’t busted. I just keep it low because it was overworked with Shiro around.”

“And phantoms are more active in colder temperatures,” Lance added and Keith nodded.

“You don’t like this.” Keith nodded toward the kitchen.

Lance took a breath. That was an understatement. “This changes everything. It goes beyond your town-home. Laws and legislation across the world were constructed around the Garrison’s proof that phantoms like Shiro don’t exist.”

“I know.”

“Current exorcisms were approved based on evidence that gateways clean up leftover memories like confetti after a party. Shiro isn’t a leftover memory.” Lance rubbed his forehead and looked through the window. “We don’t know where gateways go. Exorcisms are allowed because hauntings aren’t…” he paused and searched for the right word. “They aren’t like Shiro. If the public knew, exorcism wouldn’t have been approved in the first place. And now we can’t even be sure what phantoms are. Is that Shiro’s soul in the kitchen blinking out letters? Have we been exorcising souls to a void?”

Lance stopped for a breath and maybe a rebuttal. Keith lifted a shoulder in an apologetic shrug. He didn’t have a satisfactory answer for Lance’s newfound moral dilemma. “Why do you think I won’t open another gateway?”

“I thought you blamed yourself for Shiro’s death.”

“That’s part of it. My gateway took Shiro. It was supposed to only work on phantoms.”

Lance rubbed his temples. “This is so messed up. Are all ghosts—to use the antiquated term you like so much—like Shiro? Do you know?”

“There’s one in the house next door Shiro tried to talk to.” Keith toed a pile of paint rollers. “It doesn’t know its dead, but it isn’t a memory loop either. Maybe over time they all become like that.”

“What’s in Hotel Altea?”

“Something different. Lotor consumes energy from other ghosts. I’d say that makes him more intelligent than the others Shiro or I have interacted with over the last few months.”

“Interacted,” Lance repeated with slight panic in his voice. “We need to tell the Garrison. We can’t send ghosts through a gateway without—”

“They know.” Keith pushed over the stack of rollers. They spilled toward Lance’s feet. “They’ve always known.”

“Are you really still on payroll, or are you taking bribes to keep quiet?”

“Fuck you.” The anger in Keith’s tone didn’t need an accompanying glare to convince Lance where his loyalties lay.

“Sorry,” Lance murmured. He didn’t really believe Keith would do that.

“The Garrison is the leader in paranormal apparition studies, and they only share what benefits them.”

Lance refused to believe Keith’s conspiracy theory until he could get answers from Iverson or from any of his contacts within the higher ranks of the Garrison. “Well, what do we do now?”

“We deal with Hotel Altea.”

“What? You just blew my mind and possibly ended my career and you want to finish the Hotel Altea job?”

“Lotor is dangerous. Maybe we get him to talk, but he’s violent and could injure or kill someone, so something needs to be done.”

Lance agreed but it seemed like a tiny ant hill compared to the global repercussions of what ghosts actually were. “So we leave the revolution for another day?”

“I’m not going to change the world.” Keith looked into the kitchen. “Shiro can’t remember what’s on the other side of a gateway, but he feels like it’s where he’s supposed to go. I won’t send him or anyone else, but maybe gateways aren’t bad.”

Lance wanted to believe the Garrison knew where gateways led and it was a good place, but something sat heavy and cold in his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! ♥♥


	7. White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team learn about Lotor and attempt to open communication with the ghost. Keith then has some alone time with Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What started as a short ghost sex fic has gotten out of controllllll. 
> 
> I meant for this chapter not be this long but I feel like all the scenes need to stay together so sorry for the length I guess. It's longer than my usual but shorter than some fics I read so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm also sorry it took me over a month to post an update. It's been difficult to find motivation to write/edit. 
> 
> If you're skipping the sex, there's a scene at the end.

**Chapter 7**

“Lotor isn’t dead.” Lance dropped his covered tablet onto the table in front of Keith squeezed between Pidge and Hunk in a corner booth of Hotel Altea’s restaurant. “Officially, he’s a missing person.” He slid into the booth next to Hunk. The hotel restaurant’s kitchen had closed an hour before but would serve drinks until 2 am. “If this really is his ghost, then we know something the police don’t.”

Keith glanced at Pidge but her attention had been placed on Lance’s tablet. He rubbed his temple. The situation wouldn’t be unheard of.

“I dove deep into this Lotor guy,” Lance continued. “He was into some weird shit—of the necromancy type. And he had an obsession with gateways.” He flipped opened his tablet cover and touched the screen. “I spoke with his prior landlords, snooped around old social media accounts, and I peeked at a few police files. Paranormal Crimes Division was onto him, but he pulled a vanishing act before they managed to build a case.”

“Was Lotor an exorcist?” Hunk asked.

“From what I could tell, he did freelance exorcisms during university. He must’ve been good because the Garrison scouted him in his final year and offered him a position in gateway research—which means his file is sealed above my authorization. After he graduated, his interests turned toward raising the dead, and then he sort of fell off the usual maps.”

“What caused the interest change?” Keith could think of one reason: the death of someone Lotor had loved.

Lance must’ve expected the conclusion Keith had drawn because he shook his head. “I couldn’t find a connection to a recently deceased.”

“Maybe he wanted a challenge,” Hunk suggested. “Others have taken on necromancy despite the obvious danger and multiple laws.”

“Yeah. The no tolerance policy with necromancy is a probably why he ran when he realized Paranormal Crimes was onto him.” Lance swiped through his notes on the screen. “Are we certain whatever is in the hotel is Lotor?”

“We’ll find out tonight,” Keith said.

Hunk slid Lance’s tablet over and looked at the picture of Lotor on the screen. “What if it isn’t Lotor but something pretending to be him? In the past people believed spirits could impersonate dead loved ones.”

“That’s outdated lore.” Pidge stifled a yawn behind her coffee cup—her second refill in under 20 minutes.

“Yeah, I know that, but we found out this afternoon that our science was wrong about ghosts, so maybe even outdated lore has some truth.”

“The science wasn’t wrong,” Pidge argued without much feeling. “It was misrepresented.”

“Okay, but are we absolutely sure ghosts can’t pretend to be someone they aren’t to somehow benefit themselves?” Hunk asked and Pidge shrugged. He looked at Keith. “Is Shiro really Shiro?”

“Yes,” Keith answered. An imposter just wasn’t possible.

“We can’t even be sure Lotor is dead,” Lance said. “Keith will have to ask the ghost for a name or something, because a missing person isn’t necessarily a dead person.”

“Shiro was first classified as missing,” Keith said. It was reflex to argue even if the information was confidential and the Garrison would have him in a legal nightmare if they discovered he’d shared anything outside of the official statement.

Lance narrowed his eyes. “I missed that part of the incident report.”

Keith glanced at Pidge who shook her head in a silent act of disapproval. Keith divulged more. “His body is presumably in my gateway. So a missing person could be a dead person.”

“Whoa. Wait. What?” Lance leaned forward but looked at Pidge for an answer. She sighed and gave Keith a soft glare.

“Shiro disappeared when Keith closed his unstable gateway,” she reluctantly broke her nondisclosure agreement as well.

“You said the unstable gateway threw him into a cabinet and he died,” Lance argued.

“I said Shiro was gone,” Pidge corrected with a raised finger. Lance huffed but let it go so she continued. “Initially, the Garrison claimed Shiro left the scene, but that changed once they realized he had no family who would demand answers and a body—other than Keith. Keith of course did cause problems, but all his requests for the gateway research team to search for Shiro went ignored.”

“You stopped fighting because Shiro returned,” Lance said to Keith. “You thought he was alive in your gateway.”

Keith offered a shrug. He’d hoped Shiro was alive. The answer he’d received in the contrary was a heartbreaking comfort. Shiro was dead but not lost in whatever a gateway was.

“Shiro died in a place we’ve been told is only for the dead,” Keith said. “The Garrison already knew living organic matter could cross.”

“Shit.” Lance sat back.

“How’d he get here from the place we send phantoms?” Hunk asked.

“He’s anchored to his engagement ring,” Keith said, trying to keep his voice and emotions flat. “Shiro didn’t wear it at work.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Hunk studied his hands for a moment before he spoke again. “It has to be a rare occurrence or the Garrison couldn’t hide it. A particular exorcist might be required to open a gateway that could allow a living body through. And in this case the gateway was Keith’s, and Shiro’s connection to Keith allowed him to cross back from the gateway.”

Pidge shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. Besides, you’re suggesting a gateway opened by Lance is different from one opened by Keith, but our equipment shows gateways are the same regardless of exorcist.”

“If anything, my gateways are better,” Lance chimed in but his grandstanding lacked the usual fervor.

“Right.” Hunk studied his empty cup of coffee. “I don’t know, then.”

Lance leaned forward and tapped on the table in front of Keith. “Shiro was a part of the gateway research team, so what does he say about the highly classified information kept behind those doors?”

“Shiro’s memories from his life are hazy and are still fading.” The three looked at Keith in surprise and sympathy. He continued without acknowledgment. “If we want to know what’s behind those doors, we’ll need another way.”

Lance and Hunk looked at Pidge who frowned and pushed up her glasses. “I’m not hacking the Garrison.”

“But you could,” Hunk said.

“Of course I could.” Pidge emptied her coffee and sat back. “But the risk is too high.”

Lance checked his watch. “We can’t do anything tonight about gateways and whatever the Garrison is hiding, but we can prove this phantom is Lotor. If we wrap this case up tonight, we’ll bust up a conspiracy or two this weekend.”

 

* * *

 

Keith crossed his arms and ignored Lance’s stare. They stood around the table in the conference room and waited for Hunk and Pidge to gather equipment. After an extended period of silent brooding Keith had hoped would last longer, Lance asked a question. “How exactly do we start a conversation with a ghost?”

“You never hesitate to strike up a conversation with a stranger.” Hunk opened the handheld video camera and changed the battery.

“That’s different,” Lance said, checking his fingernails. “I’m not interested in ghost seduction.”

“Why not?” Pidge handed Hunk a spare battery he slipped into his pocket. “You’ve probably slept with half the city by now. If you factor in the dead, you’ll never run out of options.”

Lance balked but it was obvious faux insult. “Warm bodies are a high preference of mine.”

“Lance just has to talk to him,” Keith spoke over Pidge’s sarcastic retort about paranormal STDs.

“Wait. Why me?” Lance asked with a pitch in his voice Keith couldn’t tell was concern or annoyance. “You’re the ghost whisperer.”

“This is your case,” Keith reminded and Lance accepted the responsibility with a grunt.

“Will you include this in your report?” Pidge asked with a grin. Beside her Hunk covered his chuckle with a cough.

“At this point, my report is going to be a fictional story, so what’s another omission?” Lance turned away from Pidge and focused again on Keith. “Use your radar for the dead and find our ghost. We’ll take the party to him.”

“It isn’t radar for—” Keith dropped his argument. It was semantics anyway. Keith had managed a few hours of sleep after the team had left his house so he searched for Lotor without lightheadedness or dizziness. He went out into the hallway and concentrated on the small sensation that prickled his skin. “I think he’s in the pool.”

“That’s not the safest area.” Hunk stood in the doorway and clutched his camera to his chest. “Can we ask him to move? He tried to drown people.”

“The temperature readout is abnormal, but there doesn’t seem to be visual discrepancies,” Pidge said from behind him. Hunk stepped aside. She turned her laptop around for Lance to see the equipment readouts.

“Just don’t go for a swim,” Lance suggested to Hunk who opened his mouth to argue but closed it with a sigh.

“What’s the plan if the ghost is Lotor and he doesn’t want to talk?” Pidge asked.

“If he won’t tell us what will make him leave, we’ll have no choice but to exorcise.” Lance followed a step behind Keith down the hallway. “We might not know where gateways go, but this phantom is dangerous.”

“Don’t open a gateway,” Keith warned. “Lotor can use the energy to—”

“I know.” Lance rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying we can’t rely on talking if this phantom is going to hurt people—including my team. I’m not putting anyone here at risk.”

Keith nodded. A gateway could be the only option if Lotor couldn’t or refused to communicate, but they needed to try.

The room was silent when they entered. Keith walked across the tile and stopped when he reached the rougher stone around the pool’s edge. Water covered most of the area as if something—or someone—had splashed a great deal of it across the floor.

“What a disaster,” Lance said at Keith’s side. He put his hands on his hips and looked around disapprovingly, but the cause of the mess was unseen.

“We probably caught whatever splashed the water out on video if the feed didn’t encounter an error at the time.” Pidge looked at a camera installed above the door.

“Check later.” Later cracked his knuckles. “Let’s do this,” he whispered to himself and took a step toward the center of the room. “Hey, Lotor,” he said louder. His voice echoed in the space. “We’re here to help.” He hesitated around the last word and glanced at Keith.

Keith nodded once, to encourage Lance to continue. Lance took a breath and another step away. Keith could feel Lotor’s presence, but couldn’t pinpoint him to an exact location.

“It’s safe to talk to us, and we want to have a chat.” Lance waited. Hunk watched the screen on the thermal imaging camera and Pidge observed the temperature readout. She looked up as Keith felt the air chill. “Heeey, buddy,” Lance said. “You noticed us. You wanna talk?”

Keith felt Lotor’s presence stronger, but he couldn’t see him yet. He shifted on his feet and crunched down on thin ice. The pool water beneath his boots had frozen. Keith breathed out to test the temperature. His breath didn’t fog. Somehow Lotor had altered the temperature only beneath their feet.

“Maybe talking isn’t something every ghost can do,” Lance said after the silence stretched on.

“You’re impatient,” Pidge observed dryly. Lance gave her a look over his shoulder but didn’t argue in his favor.

“If you can’t verbalize, maybe flicker a light or something.” Lance waved his hand toward one of the many sconces along the wall that offered more decorative lighting than actual luminousness.

A few seconds went by in quiet stillness. The bulb nearest to Lance flickered twice and shattered. He took a startled step back, slipped on the ice, but caught himself before he lost balance.

“That was a good try,” Lance said with extra pep in his voice. “Flicker another one if your name was—is Lotor. Try not to break it this time.”

Another bulb near Pidge flickered and then splintered. She took a cautious step toward Hunk’s position.

“Okay, good.” Lance shot Keith a worried look. “We want to help you, Lotor. Maybe there’s something we can do for you so you can...” he made a vague gesture with his arm. “Leave. I guess.”

Keith felt the change in the air. Lance had definitely caught Lotor’s attention, and if the way the hair stood up on Keith’s neck was any indication, he did not approve of what he heard.

“Lotor—” Lance managed the single word before the rest of the lighting exploded. Sconces and overhead fluorescent bulbs simultaneously shattered. Keith shielded his head, but the acrylic covers above contained most of the debris. He heard Lance swear, and out of the corner of his eye he saw him raise his arm.

“Don’t—” Keith’s warning came too late. Lance had opened a gateway, and the attack using redirected energy came almost instantly. The force knocked Keith off his feet. He cracked his chin against the tile and slid on the ice. He grabbed the edge of the pool and stopped his momentum before he could slide too far.

“Pidge!” Keith searched for her in the dim lighting from the exit signs and surviving bulbs. He found her pressed against Hunk who had caught her before they both slammed against the wall. He took the brunt of the impact and seemed uninjured despite Pidge’s added weight.

Hunk gave a thumbs up. “We’re good.”

“Nice job, Big Guy.” Keith wiped blood his chin from where his teeth had pierced his lower lip.

“I’m fine too.” Lance had collided with the same wall that stopped Hunk and Pidge. He grunted in pain but his only injury appeared to be to his ego.

“No gateways.” Pidge kicked Lance’s thigh. “You idiot.”

Keith pushed up to his knees to search for Lotor’s presence. The show with the lights might’ve exhausted enough energy to force him to rest. Before Keith could send out feelers for Lotor, he was pushed off balance and submerged in water. A pressure on his chest pressed him down until his back touched the bottom of the pool. His breath came out in a string of bubbles before he clamped down and held what remained.

Calmness settled into his chest. He knew Lotor wanted to feed off of his fear, not kill him, but Keith wasn’t afraid of death. He didn’t crave it, but death meant Shiro. The positive outweighed any negative.

Hair swam across his vision—white in the underwater darkness. It had the same otherworldly glow Shiro had. Keith tried to focus on it, but the chlorine stung his eyes and blurred his vision. His lungs burned and a string of bubbles escaped his lips.

A voice clearer than it should’ve been underwater said something that made little sense. Keith searched for the hair again but the pressure on his chest lifted so he pushed himself up. As soon as his head broke the surface, Hunk grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and hauled him out of the water.

“Keith, are you okay?” Pidge wrapped a towel from the nearby rack around him.

“I’m fine.” Keith filled his lungs with deep breaths.

Lance knelt at his other side. “Dude, I’m sorry,” he said with enough emotion that he actually sounded apologetic. “The lightbulb thing was aggressive, and I thought I could get him because I knew his name. It’s easier to exorcise with a name.”

“I don’t care.” Keith used the towel to clean the blood from his chin. Lance’s assumption was correct, but his action was still stupid. “What color was Lotor’s hair?”

“Black? Brown? I don’t know. Dark. Why?”

“It’s nothing.”

“If Lotor won’t communicate, we have to exorcise him,” Lance reminded. “Do you think Shiro could help?”

Keith glared at Lance. He didn’t like what that question could mean. “What?”

Lance cringed and took a deep breath. “Maybe as a ghost, Shiro could somehow restrain—”

“No.” Keith dropped the towel and headed for the exit.

“Keith.” Lance followed. “Come on. We could use his help.”

Keith reached the door but turned onto Lance. “I’m not going to put Shiro at risk for a hotel.”

“More than a hotel is at risk. This anomaly isn’t anything we know how to deal with. You chased Lotor out of Melrose court. He could just run again.” Lance glanced at the broken glass near the door from the wall sconces. “We don’t have a lot of options.”

Keith knew Lance was right. In his current form, Shiro could help. He might not be able to restrain Lotor, but he could definitely speak with him. “I’ll ask, but Lotor has absorbed other ghosts, so I’m not going to force Shiro to help.”

 

* * *

 

Keith made it home and trudged upstairs and into the bathroom where he pulled off his water-logged boots and removed his borrowed shirt. Lance had an extra suit at the hotel but a suit was a symbol of the Garrison so Keith had refused to wear it. He did take the button-up, and Coran had found him sweatpants with the hotel logo on the left hip. The manager wasn’t happy about the evening’s events and damages, but was kind enough to offer only sympathy for Keith who looked as bruised as he felt.

“What happened?” Shiro asked.

Keith glanced at him in the doorway. The tuff of hair that had previously been black stood out in a shade whiter than the bathroom walls. Keith had noticed the change the first night Shiro had appeared, but it had been only a streak of white three months ago.

“Lance tried a gateway. It didn’t go well.” Keith sat down on the floor and leaned against the tub, exhausted from the evening. Shiro knelt between Keith’s legs and touched his lip. The cold felt good on the damaged skin. A vision of Lotor’s hair in the pool crossed his mind. “Your hair wasn’t white before.” Keith’s fingers passed through Shiro’s hair. He dropped his hand to his side.

“I must be getting old.”

“Maybe.” Keith smiled but felt it slip too soon. “I caught a glimpse of Lotor’s hair. It was dark when he was alive, but tonight it was white.” He didn’t know if it meant anything, but it felt like an important detail.

“White must be a trendy look for ghosts. I’m in vogue.” Shiro leaned forward and his lips brushed against Keith’s lower one. Keith shivered at the cold touch that sent heat rushing through him. “Are you really okay?”

“Yeah.” Keith inhaled deeply and convinced himself he could still smell Shiro. “Lotor recognized me. Maybe. I heard him—or what I assume was him when I was in the pool. All he said was ‘it’s you.’”

“It’s you?” Shiro sat back. “What do you think it means?”

“I guess this just confirms he was at Melrose Court.”

Shiro looked at Keith’s soaked boots and back at Keith. “What do you mean you were in the pool?”

“Lotor tried to drown me, but he only wanted my fear. Is energy from an exorcist better than an entire hotel filled with humans?”

“He tried to drown you?”

“Yeah.” Keith saw the panic briefly cross Shiro’s expression and realized how his casual recount of near death sounded. His own apathy toward death settled around him next. “I wasn’t afraid of dying, Shiro. My biggest concern wasn’t about my life, but how I would find you if I died so far from you.”

Shiro shifted closer again and touched Keith’s cheek. “I’d find you.”

“I could open an unstable gateway.” Keith took Shiro’s hand in his and pulled it away from his face. “I could repeat what happened to you and—”

“No.”

Keith smiled at the expected response. He hadn’t been completely serious anyway. There were too many unknowns to attempt a recreation of what he did to Shiro. “Lance wants you to help.” Keith changed the subject. “He thinks he can get Lotor into a gateway if you can restrain him.”

Shiro searched Keith’s expression. “Would you be okay with that?”

“No,” Keith said. Losing Shiro a second time would undo him. “You’d be at risk. Lotor could do something to you, or Lance could exorcise you by mistake.”

“I want to help.”

Keith had expected as much. “I know you do.”

“If I sense I’m in over my head, I’ll warn you, and you can get me out.”

Keith replied with a tight smile. They both knew Shiro never believed he was in over his head. “Keep yourself anchored to your ring.”

Shiro wrapped a finger around Keith’s ring finger and squeezed. “I will.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to Keith’s injury. From there he left a trail of light kisses from Keith’s jaw to his bare shoulder. The touches were fleeting but in their wake left a tingling sensation like a buildup of static electricity without the sting.

Desire stirred in Keith despite the cold and his bruises, but his hand went through Shiro when he tried to reach for him. Whatever rules governed interaction between their worlds favored the dead. Keith swallowed his frustration.

“You should sleep.” Shiro’s cold lips moved against Keith’s clavicle, but his whispered words sounded close enough to his ear to produce an involuntarily shudder of desire.

“Don’t go.” Keith shifted his position, lowering where he rested against the tub and relaxing the spread of his legs. Shiro responded to his physical cue.

As a ghost, fabric was no obstacle. Keith felt Shiro mouth his cock. The sensation differed from when he would tease Keith through sweatpants after a workout when they were both alive and out of breath. It crackled with the same energy as his kiss and lacked warmth, but the pressure of exploratory lips and tongue were exactly as Keith anticipated.

He sucked in a sharp breath and rolled his hips in a silent plea for more. Shiro held his waist and ran his tongue around the head of Keith’s cock. Keith groaned, wanting to push down his sweatpants and give a helping hand, but he knew even without a physical form Shiro wanted to handle his needs.

Tongue was replaced by lips and the sweatpants pulled away as Shiro took Keith’s cock into his mouth. Keith groaned raw and uninhibited, and held the edge of the tub beside his head to anchor himself. It was different from a living person with heat and saliva, but the sensation went beyond a cold, dry mouth. There was something in Keith’s nerves that registered the cold touch but also perceived something more than physical pleasure that rang beyond skin deep. It wasn’t better than when Shiro was alive, but it was a suitable substitute.

Shiro started a rhythm. Keith closed his eyes and imagined the brush of Shiro’s tuff of hair against his skin at each pass and the heat of his breathing on the base of Keith’s shaft. The press of tongue and tease of teeth made concentration difficult and soon Keith lost himself to the strange pleasure.

Keith gripped the edge of the tub harder, and allowed his hips to buck into Shiro’s mouth. Shiro reacted to his low and needy moans and adjusted his speed and pressure. He knew exactly what Keith liked.

The low electricity that ran through him from Shiro gathered in his thighs and at the base of his cock. Keith heaved for oxygen that seemed too little in the small bathroom. Keith dropped his head back, afraid to look down and see a transparent Shiro instead of the dip of dark lashes over dark eyes filled with want and adoration. His memory of Shiro flushed from exertion and lust, with lips stretched over Keith’s cock but somehow still smiling, would suffice. It would have to.

“Shiro.” Keith came with a soft gasp that trailed into a drawn out whimper. Shiro continued until Keith was on the verge of oversensitivity.

Keith finally looked at Shiro. He was less transparent and the otherworldly glow had brightened. Shiro didn’t swallow, but wherever small objects disappeared to whenever a ghost got playful was probably where Keith’s cum had gone. Keith hadn’t asked about it after the first time Shiro had no explanation.

Shiro positioned his cheek near Keith’s hip reminiscent of resting without the ability to truly feel Keith beneath him. “I can’t remember how you taste,” he whispered. Keith would’ve once been embarrassed by such a statement, but now it carved a small path through his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we'll all meet Lotor. ;)


	8. Silver Thread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro meets Lotor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun writing Lotor. 
> 
> Point of view shifts between characters in this chapter without a scene break as I usually prefer to do. It's pretty easy to tell when it shifts but I figured I'd point it out beforehand.
> 
> Thank you for reading my ghost fic ♥

**Chapter 8**

Keith walked into Hotel Altea and spotted Lance and Coran at the counter. Lance gave Coran a handshake and turned. His expression changed when he saw Keith. His cordial smile temporarily lapsed into an apologetic concern before he wrangled it back into submission.

“Hey.” Lance met Keith half way across the lobby.

“What was that about?” Keith nodded toward the front counter. Coran offered a friendly wave Keith halfheartedly returned.

Lance looked at his tablet and sighed. “I needed some information from Coran so the Garrison can reimburse the damages from last night. Iverson will have my ass if Lotor explodes anymore bulbs. Those things aren’t cheap. Is Shiro with you?” He looked behind Keith as if he expected an apparition could cross a hotel entrance without gathering any sort of reaction. Ghosts were common but still became a spectacle in public spaces.

“Yes.” Keith touched the ring in his jean pocket and felt Shiro’s presence through the anchor. “If anything happens to—”

Lance raised his hand palm out, stopping Keith before he could get out his threat. “Look, I know this was my idea, but I don’t have the slightest clue what might happen once Shiro gets upstairs. You two understand this stuff more than me, so we’ll do something else if you believe it won’t work or it wouldn’t be worth the risk. I want the Lotor situation resolved, but I don’t need anything on my conscience.”

“Shiro wants to help.” Keith crossed his arms. He wanted to back out, but couldn’t think of a different way to convince Lotor to talk that would be as quick as Shiro. Besides, Shiro wouldn’t change his mind regardless of any real or perceived danger.

“Let’s hope he can. Come on.” Lance started toward the elevators and Keith fell in step beside him. “Have you briefed Shiro already?”

“Yes. He knows everything I do.”

“Okay. Good.” Lance stabbed the up button and watched the numbers above the doors. “Partnering up with a ghost goes against everything I’ve learned and experienced in my time at the Garrison, but that sums up the last few days. What’s our plan if Shiro can’t get Lotor to talk?”

“Exorcism, somehow. With precautions.”

“Precautions.” Lance snorted. “We empty the hotel of people and tether ourselves to a pillar? What we need is someone in gateway research who can tell us how he’s attacking us and how to stop it.”

Keith crossed his arms. Shiro had never mentioned a colleague’s name. The gateway research team was secretive in a way that now seemed sinister. “We won’t find help in the Garrison.”

The elevator arrived and they rode to the fourteenth floor in silence. When the doors opened, Keith looked out into the empty hallway. Neither moved until the doors started to close and Lance reached out to stop them.

“Okay.” Lance took a breath. “Let’s hope the ghosts have a quiet conversation, because it’s just you and me. Pidge is at Garrison headquarters sniffing around classified documents, and Hunk didn’t want to be here for what he called a poltergeist showdown, so he tagged along with Pidge.”

“Poltergeist?”

“Hunk decided the antiquated term sounded better than anomaly. None of this can go in any official report anyway, so I let him use it.”

“Right.” Keith stepped out first and Lance followed.

Shiro trailed the two down the hallway, but he stopped at the conference room door. On his side of the veil, Keith’s light cast a shade like light scattered through still waters. Shiro looked around and concentrated on the presence skirting his perception. When he was alive, he felt the dead like others hear background noise in a busy café. Now as one of them, that sense was heightened. However, what he felt on the fourteenth floor was unusual.

Shiro pushed himself through the wall and into the conference room. Lance had taken a seat at the head of the table but Keith stood at the opposite. He sent out his energy to find Shiro. How an exorcist like Keith searched for the dead had an undertow—a faint tug to Shiro’s being. It only lasted as long as Keith’s attention, but it was unavoidable. Satisfied Shiro was nearby, Keith smiled softly and sat down.

“Who are you?”

Shiro looked up at the sound of a slightly accented voice and saw a man had entered the room through the wall at Lance’s back. He was smaller than Shiro but almost as tall. His hair was long and as white as Keith had described, but it didn’t appear to glow to Shiro as it did to the living.

“My name is Shiro.” Lotor studied Shiro with a serious expression for a long moment. He didn’t reply so Shiro added, “I’m here to talk.”

“Talk? The dead rarely want that.” Lotor glanced across the table and his gaze lingered on Keith. “Why do you want to talk, Shiro?”

“I’m with them.” Shiro indicated the two. He didn’t feel weak, but he could sense the power difference between him and Lotor. Even with energy from Keith, Shiro wasn’t a match, and if what the neighboring ghosts had said held truth, Shiro needed to keep his distance. “They want to help you move on without a gateway.”

“Move on?” Lotor laughed, incredulous and humorless. He moved behind Lance but didn’t reach up to touch him. “Tell me, when did the Garrison begin consulting with phantoms?”

“I’m not here under Garrison order.”

“Yet you claim you’re here to talk on the behalf of Garrison exorcists?” Lotor studied Shiro from over Lance’s head. “I’ve met one of these exorcists before. Did he follow me?”

“It wasn’t deliberate. How did you get here from Melrose Court?”

“Is that where we crossed paths?” Lotor looked at Keith and frowned as if unable to remember. “I used threads to travel. It wasn’t my intention to arrive here, but the first locations I found myself either didn’t care about a haunting or lacked the appropriate funds to pay the Garrison’s exorbitant fee. One family called in a religious priest, but that only proved to be an irritant. I left and found myself nearby. I knew if I made enough noise a hotel would have the necessity and means to call an exorcist.” He waved a hand at the two seated around the table. “And they brought me two.”

“Exorcists are trained to open gateways. If you want an exorcist, why have you attacked them?”

“I’ve done no such thing. I need access to a gateway, but I can’t detain the natural rebound after it rejects me, nor can I anticipate the exorcist’s lack of control once power has shifted out of their grasp.”

Shiro frowned. What Lotor had said struck a chord but his memories refused to play the full tune. “If you need a gateway, Lance can open one for you.”

“Is he the one who made the recent poor attempt?” Lotor gestured toward Lance and Shiro nodded. “No. His gateway manipulation is too volatile. It’s strong enough, but ultimately his emotions are too unstable for what I need.”

Shiro shifted his gaze to Lance. His memory continued to hum under Lotor’s words, but whatever had been stirred refused to surface. Shiro looked at Lotor. “What do you need?”

Lotor studied Lance for a long moment before he replied softer than before. “I need an exorcist more pliable than what the Garrison produces.”

Regret or sadness flickered across Lotor’s expression but it twisted into resentment before Shiro could wonder what he’d meant.

“You said you use threads to travel,” Shiro said. “Do you have more than one anchor?”

“Yes. Each is a link to the living, and I require a great deal of threads. The more I gather, the stronger my connection becomes.” Lotor left Lance’s side and approached Shiro. “Are you here to discover how to get rid of me?”

“I’m here to open communication between you and—”

“I don’t require assistance.” Lotor stopped within an arm’s length. He didn’t try to touch Shiro, but his proximity felt like a threat anyway. “I could communicate with any one of the exorcists. However, I know the futility of the effort.”

Shiro dropped his gaze to Keith who had leaned forward in conversation Shiro couldn’t hear. “They’ll help you.”

“They don’t know how to help me.” Lotor touched Keith’s chin. Keith sat back in his chair but didn’t appear to have noticed Lotor’s curiosity or inspection. “And the Garrison made sure of that.”

“The Garrison?”

Lotor turned, grabbed Shiro by the front of his uniform, and slammed him onto the table. The two seated remained undisturbed. Shiro grabbed Lotor’s arm and tried to pull free, but without physical forms it was a battle of energy, and Lotor had the upper hand.

“Let me go,” Shiro demanded and Lotor scoffed.

“I’m curious why the dead would befriend exorcists.” Lotor ran his free hand down Shiro’s chest, searching more than caressing. “But I’ve been in this form for a long time. Things might have changed in the world.”

Shiro struggled again, but a flare of pain, or what he remembered pain to be, stopped him. He gritted his teeth and waited for the worse of it to subside.

“You only have one.” Lotor raised his hand into Shiro’s view. He held Shiro’s silver thread in between two fingers.

“You—” Shiro had never seen another ghost’s thread. He believed every ghost had one, but though only the one connected to it could see or touch it.

Lotor frowned at the thread and made a noise crossed between annoyance and confusion. He leaned closer and scrutinized Shiro’s face. A moment later, his lips parted in a silent “oh” and he pulled back.

“You’re like me,” he whispered. “Not alive, but not quite dead either.”

It made no sense. Of course he was dead. “What do you mean?”

“I’m caught between worlds, unable to leave in either direction.” Lotor loosened his hold but not enough to free him. “My body is trapped on the other side of a gateway opened by myself. I need to return to it before I miss my chance to restore my life.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is possible, but difficult in this form.” Lotor examined Shiro’s thread and frowned. “Did the Garrison do this to you?”

“No.” That much Shiro knew—or thought he knew. “I died trying to exorcise you.”

“You’re not dead.” Lotor straightened and pulled his hand back. Shiro’s thread snapped in his fingers. Shiro felt the flare of pain and immediate loss of energy. Lotor stepped away and Shiro slipped to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.

He looked at Lotor, registered his pained expression, and then lowered his gaze to the collection of silver thread wrapped around Lotor’s wrist he hadn’t seen before. Shiro touched the end of his thread that dangled from his chest. The steady rhythm that had reminded Shiro of a heartbeat was gone.

“I’m sorry.” Lotor turned away. “Each thread strengthens my connection to the living world. I need yours.”

Shiro looked up again but Lotor was obscured by the mist-like substance that began to encroach on him, unseen by Lotor. Shiro tried to get to his feet but lacked the strength. Instead, he used the last of his energy that remained in his broken thread to cross the veil into Keith’s world.

“Keith!”

Keith startled, saw Shiro, and dropped to his knees beside him. “What happened?”

“Lotor wants to bring himself back.” There wasn’t enough time to repeat the full conversion.

“I’m getting you out of here.” Keith started to stand but Shiro stopped him with his words.

“Don’t leave. Lotor has my anchor. I can’t follow you.”

“You can’t—?” Keith dropped to his knees again. He reached for Shiro his fingers met only air. “Then make a new anchor.”

Shiro smiled for Keith’s benefit but he could no longer see his expression through the dense fog. “I’ll find you.”

“Shiro!” Keith called but Shiro’s form faded until he was gone. “No. No! Shiro!” Keith shut his eyes and concentrated until he felt Shiro’s presence in the room. He was still there. Invisible but not completely gone. He took a breath and pushed to his feet.

Lance caught his furious gaze and held up his hands in a placating gesture. Keith didn’t need to say anything for Lance to understand who he blamed. “Is Shiro still here?”

Keith breathed out and slipped back into his chair. “Yes. He’s weak, but I can still feel him.”

“So Lotor consuming energy was just a ghost-rumor.”

“Lotor has Shiro’s anchor,” Keith argued.

“The Garrison doesn’t teach about anchors,” Lance reminded. Keith shrugged but offered no further explanation. Lance blew out a frustrated breath. “So without his anchor, he’s stuck on this floor with Lotor?”

“Yeah.” Keith confirmed and slid gaze to the empty floor beside him.

Guilt curdled Lance’s stomach. His idea had separated Keith from Shiro a second time. Sure, Keith could use his extra sense to feel Shiro’s presence, but even after his death they had shared three extra months together. The idea tasted sour to Lance, but his opinion about friendships with the dead made no difference. Besides, Lance had never known grief as strong as the loss of a lover. Maybe he would’ve made the same choices Keith had.

“Keith. I’m sorry.”

Keith inhaled deeply. For a long time they sat in silence. Keith finally looked up but before he could say anything, the door burst opened.

“Guys!” Pidge rushed into the room with Hunk on her heels. Lance shot to his feet, too startled to speak but glad the disruption hadn’t been from an angry poltergeist.

“You won’t believe what I uncovered in the highly classified ‘not for anywhere near my level of authorization’ files.” Pidge dropped her messenger bag into a chair and dug into it for her computer.

“Pidge hacked her employer,” Hunk clarified excitedly. “She said she wouldn’t but she did, and it was awesome!”

“You must’ve found gold to come in here like that.” Lance lowered back into his chair and rested his head in his hands. He was interested but still reeling in emotions—none of which he’d been able to properly label yet.

“It’s gold alright.” Pidge grinned. “Lotor’s dossier is at the same level of restricted access as Shiro’s became after the Melrose Court incident. Pretty odd for an intern. So I decrypted it. Not only was he not just an intern, he’s also not dead.”

“Then who’s in the hotel?” Lance asked, exasperated.

“Lotor, most likely.”

Lance rubbed his temples but waited for her to explain.

“After Lotor graduated university he headed a small team within gateway research that specialized in a certain type of theorized phenomena. All of his research on the topic prior to his employment in his file. He was obsessed with this long before the Garrison’s interest in him. I think he first believed it was a way to bring back the dead.”

“Wait. Let’s go back. How can he be alive and haunt a hotel at the same time?” Lance asked, hoping to get to the point before Pidge could get further into a tangent.

“The Garrison believes his disembodied soul is outside of a gateway because his body is inside one.”

“Like Shiro?” Keith asked and Pidge looked at him. The edge of hope in his voice was hard to miss.

“If what the Garrison has been researching is true,” Pidge said with careful emphasize on the speculation of the research, “Shiro might be alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a plot twist...???? What a cliffhanger???
> 
> I feel a little bad about that ending when I took over a month with an update. ٩(♡ε♡ )۶ ....sorry....But hey, maybe there's hope for Shiro?
> 
> See you (probably) next month with chapter 9!  
> Thank again ♥


	9. Greater Resonance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro and Lotor have another conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting for an update and for reading my silly little ghost story that I definitely didn't mean to be this long lol.

**Chapter 9**

Shiro remained where Lotor had left him. Keith’s light had shifted around but hadn’t strayed from Shiro. Which meant Keith had remained in the conference room for however long it took Shiro to feel whole again.

The drain of his energy had been alarming, and for a long while he thought he’d dissipate into the fog that surrounded him. He’d felt he no longer had a form or an idea of what shape he was supposed to be.

However, he’d waited and watched Keith’s light, and eventually came back to himself. He was Takashi Shirogane. He had been an exorcist. He hadn’t lived nearly as long as he wanted, and he had loved—he still loved—Keith.

Finally, Shiro struggled to his feet. The fog had thickened and now concealed everything at arm’s length. Keith’s light had been muted by a considerable degree but still bled through the haze.

Without a plan fully formed, Shiro took a step away from the light. If Keith remained in the same location, placing his back to his light would direct Shiro toward the hallway. He progressed slowly but his fingers touched the wall and he paused, unsure if he could press himself through the wooden frame and drywall in his current state. What if he got stuck half way through?

He started with his fingertips and found the task easier than before. Without his thread he had less substance. The idea wasn’t a pleasant one. He pushed it to the back of his mind and slipped into the hallway. He navigated slowly, frequently checking behind him for Keith’s light. He looked into each room he came across until he found Lotor lingering beside the swimming pool. The fog thinned and separated around Lotor as if his energy repelled what Shiro’s could no longer.

Lotor glanced up. Surprise flickered across his expression. “You’re still here.”

Maybe he’d expected Shiro to fade as Shiro had feared he would. “I promised someone I wouldn’t leave.”

Lotor made a soft sound like a snort but without breath it was difficult to discern. “That exorcist? Your thread led me back to him. I confess I had hoped your anchor would be more useful than just another link to the living.”

“If it’s no use to you, give it back.” Shiro knew he couldn’t fight Lotor for the return of his anchor. He was no threat in his current state.

“It’s unfortunate, but even if your thread was entirely useless to me, I couldn’t return it. That’s not how these things work. The dead get one anchor and even that erodes over time. They either move on or remain long enough to become a visual echo of the life they once had.”

“Move on?”

Lotor gestured in a direction Shiro thought was the outer wall. “There are natural gateways. They transport the dead wherever the dead are meant to go.”

Shiro hadn’t seen anything resembling a gateway in his time among the dead. “Where?”

“I’m told they’re everywhere. You and I can’t see them because they aren’t meant for disembodied living souls.”

Shiro frowned. He couldn’t believe Lotor’s nonsense about his body. “Why do you think you’re still alive?”

Lotor directed his gaze upward. “You said you attempted to exorcise me which means you were an exorcist. What talent did you possess: sight or sense?”

“Sense.”

“Good. Then you’ll understand. Alive, you could sense phantoms. Now dead, you sense them at a greater resonance. You’re aware of how the dead feel to your sense, and you must have noticed how my presence doesn’t feel like others. If you focus, you should be able to perceive my connection to a living source. It’s faint, but unmistakable once you detect it.”

Shiro did as Lotor suggested and focused on his presence. Lotor waited patiently with his attention on Shiro. The thrum of something sounded just outside of Shiro’s perception. He closed his eyes and prodded the edges of Lotor’s presence until he could single out the oddity. Beneath Lotor’s energy hummed a second something Shiro instinctively knew was the connection Lotor had spoken about.

Shiro opened his eyes. The reality was slow but it spread hope in what little he had left of himself. “If you return to your body, you’ll—?”

“Live again,” Lotor finished. After a moment he shifted his gaze to the ceiling and continued. “However, I need a living exorcist to create one and transfer it into my control. It’s proving to be a daunting task. I don’t know how much time I have left.”

“Why do you need control of the gateway?”

Lotor gave Shiro a patient but aggrieved look. “My body is in my gateway. Each exorcist’s gateway opens to a different location.” He said the fact as if Shiro should’ve known. “In my current form I cannot open one myself, but with enough energy and links to the other side, I should be able to take control of one opened by another and access my body.”

Again, Lotor’s words fingered memories Shiro couldn’t grasp. Had he known this when he was alive, or was it knowledge he should’ve gained after death? “My body must be within Keith’s gateway. If he opens one, I can return to it?” Lotor said nothing so Shiro continued. “If I get my body back, I can open a gateway and transfer the control to you.”

Lotor narrowed his eyes and looked Shiro up and down. “The only connection you currently have is to your body. You require a link to the living world if you wish to return from a gateway. I took your thread and cannot return it.”

Shiro glanced over his shoulder. He could make out the distant glow of Keith’s light. “I need a new one.”

“Yes,” Lotor confirmed. “Need I remind you the dead cannot weave new threads?”

Shiro looked at Lotor. “But I’m not dead.”

Lotor opened his mouth but closed it without speaking. He smiled faintly and shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

“How are anchors originally created?” Shiro asked.

Lotor crossed his arms. “The dead linger where they no longer belong because they have a strong desire to remain. That desire creates their anchor.”

“Emotion,” Shiro said and Lotor inclined his head in agreement. “Have you tried to create a new one?”

“No. We might have living bodies somewhere, but we’re governed by the same laws as the dead.”

Shiro didn’t care about laws. He would try everything to get back to Keith. “Give me time. If I’m successful, tell me how to retrieve my body and I’ll get you to yours.”

After a moment Lotor chuckled. “You surprise me. If you’re able to weave yourself a new anchor, you’ll have my assistance.”

 

* * *

 

Shiro returned to Keith’s light. It had changed position again and now shone from closer to the floor. Shiro knelt and caught a glimpse of Keith’s face and hand. Keith had moved to the cot to sleep. Whether or not he did, Shiro couldn’t tell.

Lightly Shiro placed the back of two fingers against Keith’s cheek. It felt warm. Shiro smiled and trailed his fingers down Keith’s arm and to his hand, relaxed and palm up.

Shiro took what remained of his thread and pressed it against Keith’s palm. “I’ll find you,” he whispered.

With his thread pressed into Keith’s hand, Shiro waited. He couldn’t say what he expected, but he’d hoped an anchor could be willed into existence by desperation. But his thread slipped out of Keith’s hand the moment Shiro moved his. Desperation couldn’t repair a thread.

Shiro needed rest. He’d try again when he had more energy. He rested his head beside Keith’s and imagined how it would feel to have Keith’ breath against his skin once again. He’d spent a long time pining for the promised lifetime with Keith. Shiro believed despair could only lead to ruin, but hope was difficult to hold onto.

“I’ll find you,” Shiro whispered once again.

 

* * *

 

Keith dreamed of the past. He relived the day Shiro had bought him a bottle of champagne to celebrate Keith’s promotion to lead exorcist. The celebration had ended on the floor of the kitchen in the townhome they shared. Messy kisses, joy, and cheap champagne had never tasted so good.

He woke with an ache in his chest that rivaled the crick in his neck from the cot. He hadn’t wanted to sleep and never had during overnight cases, but he needed the energy to continuously search for Shiro. However, the dream had stirred up a fear he wouldn’t be able to help Shiro. The thought burned behind Keith’s eyes and applied pressure to the back of his throat.

He lowered his gaze to his hand and his breath caught. Shiro’s image was faint and dust particles in the early morning sunlight danced through him, but he was undeniably present. Real yet intangible.

Keith studied his transparent face swept by dark eyelashes and marred by a freshly healed cut across the bridge of his nose. It had struck him as odd that a wound so close to death would materialize in Shiro’s apparition. Ghosts tended to look as their memories depicted them. Shiro hadn’t had a chance to acquaint himself with the injury before his presumed death.

Now Keith wondered about Shiro’s body in a gateway and whether or not the wound had healed before it could fester. He wondered whether or not it was even possible to retrieve Shiro’s body, or if it mattered at all. What if Shiro couldn’t climb back into it after three months? Keith had a tendency to reject optimism for a more pragmatic approach, but even he could allow himself to believe he could bend all known laws of the universe to return something lost. He would break every natural law if it meant he could have the future promised to Shiro.

“Takashi,” Keith whispered. Shiro’s eyes opened but he didn’t seem to see Keith. His lips turned upwards in a small smile that spoke of a relief Keith felt in his own chest and then parted in spoken words Keith couldn’t hear.

“You awake?” Pidge’s words shifted Keith’s gaze to her seated at the table with three laptops spread out before her and Lance’s tablet propped up at her elbow. He quickly looked back but Shiro was gone.

“Yeah,” Keith said.

“If you had a dream, we have a journal somewhere for you to write it down.”

Phantoms could alter dreams and give clues to the haunting, but in Keith’s case, it wouldn’t help figure out anything with Lotor. “I dreamed of Shiro.” Keith sat up and reached for his boots he’d pushed under the cot hours earlier. “Where is everybody?”

“Hunk went to the office.” Pidge looked at the video feed on the laptop to her right and frowned. “And Lance is still in the pool talking to himself.”

“Lance is what?”

“He’s trying to open communication with Lotor, but other than abnormal temperature readouts, there’s no evidence Lotor is still there. How much sleep did you get?”

Keith stood and joined Pidge at the table. “Not much. Shiro is still here. I saw him just now.”

“That’s a good sign, right?”

Keith shrugged and turned the nearest laptop toward him. “What are you doing?”

“I gathered relevant data from the gateway research team and Lotor’s necromancy research. I can’t understand how any of this has remained a secret for so long. Why haven’t any of the other paranormal research groups across the world discover gateway glitches?”

“The garrison managed to convince the world all phantoms are residual energy. Even outside groups constantly agree with them. Hiding something as rare as what happened to Shiro and Lotor would be easy.”

Pidge sighed and rubbed her eyes. “You’re right. Both incidents were caused by Lotor. Something in this data explains what he did. If we find it, maybe we can reverse it.”

“Did the gateway research team look for Lotor?”

“From the reports I’ve read, they made a few attempts, but out of concerns for personnel safety, Iverson put a stop to it and Lotor’s research.”

“They abandoned him,” Keith said and Pidge sighed.

Lance opened the door and entered the room, pulling a room service cart behind him. “Morning. I ordered coffee and breakfast.” He transferred a tray to the table.

“You’ve finally found a career you can really excel in,” Pidge deadpanned and reached for a mug.

“I’ll probably need a new job after this case, so it’s nice to have options.” Lance dropped into a chair. “The hotel staff won’t come onto the floor after Lotor’s show of power with those lights. I’ve never seen anyone actually afraid of a haunting before. No one was frightened when Lotor interacted with guests in the swimming pool, but damage some property and the residual energy liability on the fourteenth floor is suddenly a frightening unknown.”

“Did you get Lotor to talk?” Keith asked.

Lance groaned low and long and lowered his head to the table. “No. Please tell me Shiro materialized and fixed our problems.”

“He hasn’t.” Keith looked at the scanned images from a handwritten notebook displayed on the laptop in front of him. Lotor’s penmanship was elegant but rushed and tightly spaced. It didn’t make for a quick read.

“Then we keep looking,” Lance said and reached for the third laptop. “Did you make any progress on the data?”

“Not really,” Pidge said. “I covered my tracks but still asked Matt for a favor. If the security programs noticed me, he’ll cover it.”

“It’s nice to have a brother in IT security.” Lance cracked his knuckles. “Okay. Let’s see just what the fuck Lotor did to make such a mess.”

 

* * *

 

Shiro had heard his name. It lingered like the touch of a lover. He opened his eyes and saw light brighter than any sunlight he had seen during his time among the dead. The warmth from his name mingled with the warmth from the light and rekindled his small hope of seeing Keith again.

He then realized with a start that the fog had not only receded but had vanished entirely. Shiro got to his feet and studied the conference room. He could see Pidge, Lance, and Keith seated around the table. They looked tired but more importantly they looked colorful. Shiro had grown used to muted colors. The scene before him was still duller than it would be to living eyes, but it was so much richer than he had seen previously.

Shiro felt for his broken thread and found it dangling from his chest. The end had blackened and grown fragile. It crumbled at his touch. He dropped it and pulled away his hand. Something blinked in the sunlight and caught his eye. A new thread had grown from the inside of his wrist. It had a spectacular shine and when Shiro held it between his fingers, he felt the thrum of a heartbeat. He was no longer certain if it was Keith’s or his own.

He followed his new thread the short distance to where it entered the inside of Keith’s wrist. The direct connection to a living body might explain the vibrancy of the world around him. If Shiro still breathed he would’ve sighed with relief and happiness. Instead he gazed at Keith and smiled.

“You did it,” Lotor said, sounding more astonished and perplexed than his usual neutral tone allowed.

Shiro turned and studied Lotor standing halfway through the wall. Lotor had offered his assistance but Shiro would precede with more caution than before. “I did,” Shiro confirmed. “Once I’m able to cross to Keith’s side, I’ll explain the situation and ask him to open a gateway.”

Lotor entered the room. His next words were more guarded and careful. “He must be able to hold open a stable gateway under immense strain. The other exorcist can lend him aide. It won’t be a simple task.”

“Keith won’t fail.”

Lotor looked at Keith, unconvinced by Shiro’s certainty. “Very well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect Lotor to be this fun to write :)


	10. Lost Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Shiro discuss a way to bring Shiro back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took an unplanned break for mental health things but it's better now. I'm sorry about the 5 months wait for an update. (how about that season 7 tho? hell yeah Shiro baybeeeee) I'm back and finishing this story! I have chapter 11 finished and 12 almost done so no more 5 month waits lol
> 
> ♥ Thanks for reading and not giving up on this story ♥

**Chapter Ten**

Pidge and Lance needed help to comb through the years of Garrison reports and Lotor’s journals and research papers, but Keith couldn’t concentrate on the task. Something had fundamentally changed and it tugged at his subconscious until he pushed his chair back, ignored Lance’s pointed complaint, and excused himself.

The silence in the hallway hummed in his ears, but Keith focused in that stillness, searching to understand something he couldn’t grasp. It was a sensation of a presence, but whenever he tried to grab into it, it skirted the edge of his perception and dipped away, remaining a shadow in the periphery of his paranormal sense. 

It was so similar to his ghost radar, as Lance had termed it, that Keith wondered if an ability he thought he’d mastered had malfunctioned. Yet, the net was cast too wide and too focused to be a manipulation of his energy.

Despite the strangeness of it, Keith knew the presence wasn’t a threat. It reminded him of how Shiro’s ring had allowed him to feel Shiro no matter the distance. That connection, that bond, had been a small ripple compared to the waves this presence made against Keith’s exorcist sense but it held the same familiar comfort.

“Shiro?” Keith whispered, cutting the silence with the crack of his voice.

Only the low hum of vending machines answered.

After a moment, Keith drew in a deep breath and walked to the alcove. Salt from the handful Lance had used against Lotor on the day Keith had first visited the hotel remained scattered on the floor. Keith crouched and pressed his finger against the nearest scattering of crystals. Lotor had appeared in a shadowed form and in the pool as a brief flash of white hair. Outside of his desire to feed on fear, it made little sense why he restrained himself to that of weaker ghosts.

Keith straightened and dusted his finger on his black jeans. Everything would be easier if Lotor would communicate. If what the Garrison believed was true and Lotor was alive in a gateway, would he even be aware of it?

“Keith.” Shiro’s voice sounded soft and gentle beside him as if aware the sound could startle him.

Keith turned his head, expecting to be alone, but set his gaze upon Shiro. He took in the warm affection in Shiro’s eyes, the slightest curve to his worried smile, and the empty hallway just visible through his form.

“What happened?” Keith’s heart drummed in his ears. Shiro hadn’t disappeared. The early morning vision hadn’t been a dream. “What did Lotor do to you?”

Shiro’s gaze flickered down but lifted when he gave his answer. “He took my original thread—my anchor.”

Keith's eyes widened. “Lotor can do that? Can all ghosts?”

“He’s been collecting them as a way to strengthen himself. I don’t know if others can.” Shiro touched the inside of Keith’s wrist. Keith’s breath caught at the crackle of energy and heat from the chill of his fingertips. “But I created a new thread. I’m anchored to you now.”

Keith’s pulse began to race. Shiro’s touch was electric, a current that penetrated beyond skin and flesh to graze the raw sinew of Keith’s very being. “It’s good to have you back,” Keith whispered, unable to find enough oxygen in the space dominated by desire, grief, and want.

“I’m not back yet.”

The need to wrap his arms around Shiro and kiss him threatened to overwhelm him. Keith wanted to hold Shiro close and never lose him again, but an intangible spirit couldn't be held or protected. The brief palpable moments never lasted, and they could never replace time lost.

Shiro took a step closer and Keith’s pulse quickened once more. His breath came in short, expected gasps. Something felt different with Shiro. Maybe being his anchor had altered Keith’s reaction to him, or maybe relief created an overzealous response he couldn’t tamper even if he’d wanted to.

Keith caught Shiro’s hand, grateful he was solid enough despite his translucent state. Shiro leaned down and brushed his lips against Keith’s. The tease sent a jolt of desire, hot and urgent though him. He parted his lips in a silent, sudden intake of breath, and Shiro kissed him fully.

He tasted like nothing, but he felt a lost promise of forever—a bittersweet memory of a planned lifetime promised anew.

But it was Shiro’s touch that sent Keith spinning, uncertain of where reality met with his desire and hope. For a moment he believed Shiro had a warm, breathing body pressed against his. The ghostly energy that had added a strange but satisfying pleasure before had grown and altered. Keith had no real complaints with how Shiro’s thigh felt pressed between his legs, heavy and solid against Keith’s growing proof blood still pumped through his body.

Shiro pulled away unexpectedly and Keith clung to him, dragging in deep breaths of cold air. “You feel—” incredible Keith thought, but he would never suggest paranormal energy was better than flesh and sweat. “Almost real.” Keith finished with a sigh.

“Must be the anchor.” Shiro brought Keith’s wrist to his lips and Keith thought he felt the scrap of chapped lips but knew the illusion came from his mind’s ability to fill in physical gaps from existing memories.

Keith leaned back against the wall to put some distance between them. No matter how much he needed something more than the press of a thigh, it was daytime and they weren’t in the privacy of their home.

“The Garrison believes Lotor is alive in a gateway,” Keith said, focusing on the reason they were in Hotel Altea despite how much he wanted to drag Shiro to the floor and discover just how much detail his mind would need to fill in. “It’s probably what happened to you too.”

Shiro released Keith’s hand and took a step away. “Lotor believes the same.” He told Keith everything Lotor had said and their agreement to first get Shiro’s body and then Lotor’s. The plan was simple but it lacked a key component.

“I don’t know how I opened the gateway that did this to you,” Keith said. “We have copies of Lotor’s research and the classified Garrison reports, but I don’t expect to find instructions from either source.”

“Lotor agreed to show you.” Shiro paused. Keith read his hesitation despite the softened details of his translucent face. “He thinks Lance will need to help.”

The ability to open a gateway came natural to a percentage of the population. Training was rarely needed to do what exorcists did. What training there was had been controlled by the Garrison and never ventured past the basics of control and paranormal law and restrictions. Any finer control beyond the basics came from personal practice or heightened natural ability. So the idea that a gateway could draw from two exorcists had never occurred to Keith.

“Fine.” Keith would have to trust Lance’s exorcist abilities and hope whatever steep learning curve may exist wouldn’t be beyond their abilities. “When?”

“After the sun sets. It’s easier for ghosts then.”

Any desire that had been stirred in Keith fell to impatience. “Why hasn’t Lotor talked to us directly? We could’ve helped him sooner.”

Shiro touched Keith’s cheek. “I know. I’ll see what I can do.”

Keith closed his eyes and breathed in. He smelled chlorine from the pool instead of the familiar scent of Shiro. When he opened his eyes, he was once again alone. A weight settled on his chest, but he had reason to hope. His gateway held Shiro and Lotor held the knowledge needed to bring him back.

 

* * *

 

Lance lowered his tablet and looked at Pidge across the table. He was used to research. A large part of his title came loaded with it, but he hadn’t slept, worry and stress pressed sharply between his shoulder blades, and a sense of urgency had bubbled up sometime between 2 and 4 am. Lance couldn’t see the clock ticking down to an unknown, but he felt it heavy and daunting right above the focus of stress on his back.

“Can we review?” Lance asked.

Pidge didn’t look up but acknowledged his question with a nod and reached for a smaller tablet at her elbow. “I’ve found a lot of interesting things, but I’m not convinced anything will help our situation.”

“What a coincidence; I’ve found a lot of irrelevant nonsense too.” Lance glared at the scanned image of a notebook page. The penmanship was legible, but Lotor favored fancy loops over an easy read. “Have you noticed his vocabulary? He was worse than Keith. Even fifteen years ago these terms were outdated. He must’ve picked them up from his unlicensed exorcist mother—along with his very unorthodox view of the dead.”

Pidge snorted and caught his gaze. “I read an early necromancy theory of his outlined sometime within his first year at uni. He wanted to put a soul from a recently deceased person into a living body.”

“That’s called corruption—or possession if we use Lotor’s vocabulary.”

“Yeah. I thought so too, but the difference is he wanted to ‘extract’ the living soul from the body first, or have the second soul evict the body’s original one.”

“He wanted to kill a living person to bring back a dead person?” Lance stared at Pidge who twitched a shoulder in shrug.

“I also read brief mention of forcing two souls into one body as a way to prologue consciousness of the deceased,” she continued. “He was stuck on that possession thing, but we know the long-term application of a possession is impossible. The body just doesn’t allow it.”

Lance shifted his gaze to the neat, tight penmanship across his screen. “Do you think the Garrison recruited him because his ideas were a danger to the general population and not because his ideas were groundbreaking?”

Pidge smiled at his sarcasm but argued, “They wouldn’t have concealed his employment and tucked him into gateway research if they weren’t interested in conducting a few of his unorthodox ideas. I think it’s possible Lotor stumbled into territory that interested the Garrison, but it didn’t fit their narrative of what phantoms are so they called him an intern and classified whatever he did there.”

“What _did_ he do there?” Lance pointed at Pidge’s computer. “Have you opened any of the Garrison reports?”

“Yes. They’ve been heavily redacted.”

“So no hope of finding a step by step process recreation of this thing you call a gateway glitch in any official report?”

“No. And after reading a few of Lotor’s journals, it's clear he wasn’t the type to write out instructions on something that must’ve been an extraordinary natural talent to him. We might be wasting our time.”

“This would be easier if he would just talk to us.” Lance raised his voice and directed the words at the ceiling.

They both jumped when the door opened.

Keith frowned at their reaction. After a pause, he entered the room and closed the door. “Make any progress?” He asked.

“No.” Lance turned his attention to his tablet. “It’s nice of you to return. We can use the help.”

“I spoke to Shiro.” Keith sat down and Lance looked up with a skeptical frown. “He talked to Lotor. Lotor confirmed his body and Shiro’s are in gateways.”

“Did he say whether or not it’s possible to reverse what happened?” Pidge asked.

“Lotor said it is, and Shiro believes him.” _And I believe Shiro_ was unspoken but implied by how Keith held her gaze.

“Okay, but do we believe it’s possible to store a living body inside a gateway?” Pidge questioned. “And are we certain this is an avenue we want to venture down? What if a human body can’t survive a gateway and...” she hesitated but finished in a gentler tone, “Shiro isn’t what we expect after all this time?”

The idea that Shiro wouldn’t be himself had crossed Keith’s mind. It was impossible to say what a gateway would do to a living body, but Keith would take that risk.

“I’m going to try,” Keith said and his tone left no room for further argument. Pidge leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “Shiro said Lotor will explain how to get to Shiro's body,” he continued and shifted his gaze to Lance. “He also said you might need to help me with energy for the gateway.”

Lance opened his mouth for a retort but his eyes widened and he picked up his tablet. “I read something about energy siphoning.” He read through his notes and then scrolled through the scanned images until he found the entry he'd marked as of interest. “Lotor did a few experiments for a paper during his second year at university. This journal was just a draft and a few notes, but he mentions that he put his partner in the hospital because he siphoned too much energy.”

Pidge made a quiet noise of interest and concern. “Lotor was able to manipulated a force we still don’t fully understand in ways we hadn’t seen before.”

“And ways we haven’t seen since,” Lance added. “If his theories were safe, there would be exorcists practicing them today. Here it is.” He slid his tablet across the table toward Keith. “Lotor has a few brief notes about how he managed to feed his partner’s energy aura into his. It reads like a lot of gibberish to me, but maybe you’ll understand.”

Keith read the page and frowned. It didn’t make sense, but Keith had never thought of energy as something tangible. “Lotor calls it aura energy and attributes it to a human’s soul.” He sat back and touched the inside of his wrist. “I wonder if an anchor is a piece of that soul tethered to this world.”

“Let’s not discuss souls.” Lance took back his tablet. “Certain things are better left to theological professors.”

“Maybe you should practice siphoning Lance’s energy before you need it to open a gateway,” Pidge said. “Or just feel for his aura—whatever that term means.”

“Why would one exorcist’s energy not be enough?” Lance asked. “A gateway is a gateway. I’ve never noticed a change based on my energy output.”

“I’ve never seen equipment reading variation between gateways,” Pidge agreed. “But we’re not talking normal gateways either. What did this to Shiro was an unstable gateway and our equipment fails to accurately record fluctuations that occur in those.”

“I forced it open on the floor.” Keith studied his hands on the table. “I had to bend it to comply to the location.”

“Exorcists can’t bend or move their gateway.” Lance’s statement was contradictory but his tone was more sympathetic than argumentative. “We can only open one along existing access points but are able to stretch those points for better placement. That stretch should remain horizontal to the point of origin. If it goes vertical, the gateway becomes unstable and could pull too much energy from the exorcist or cause a massive recoil and harm the exorcist or bystanders.”

“Yeah, I know. We’re warned to never to create an unstable gateway for a reason.” Keith swallowed. His guilt twisted sharp in his chest. “It drained my energy. It also took Shiro.”

Lance glanced at Pidge and frowned, knowing he’d said the wrong thing. Pidge cleared her throat and said, “If you repeat the process from Monroe Court in order to retrieve Shiro, there’s a chance even if the danger boundary is small, it could recreate the glitch and we’ll have another body to fetch. We don’t know what will happen, and we have hotel guests a floor below us we can't endanger.”

“You don’t have to help.” Keith looked up with defiance in his eyes but understanding in his tone. “I’m going to find Shiro with or without you. If necessary, I'll do this at home.”

“I plan to help.” Lance leaned an elbow on the table and flashed Keith a cocky grin. “I need this to beat your record. In my opinion it still counts as an exorcism since there’ll be one less phantom when we’re done.”

“But Keith will be doing all of the work,” Pidge pointed out.

Lance pressed a thumb into his chest. “My case, my exorcism credit.”

Bravado aside, Keith was grateful for any assistance. He looked at his wrist and thought about the new sensation of Shiro that now continued to brush the periphery of his paranormal sense. He looked up. “Your energy aura or whatever is probably similar to how I now sense Shiro.”

Lance frowned but offered no provoking or flippant remark. “Okay. Does that mean you think you can siphon my energy?”

“It means I have an idea.”


	11. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith opens a gateway to retrieve Shiro's body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter got a bit too long so I split it.  
> Only 2 chapters left. Thanks for reading ♥

**Chapter 11**

The problem was Lance wasn’t dead. Whatever sensation Keith felt with Shiro didn’t apply to Lance’s energy no matter how much he concentrated and probed around Lance with his exorcist sense.

Lance ignored Keith’s attempts to flesh out his aura “or whatever” but grew increasingly amused by Keith’s silent mounting frustration. He looked up from his tablet and raised an eyebrow. “So. How’s that idea of yours coming along?”

“I don’t understand.” Keith turned away and rubbed his eyes. It had seemed plausible to find a living person’s energy if he searched, but it was now clear that whatever talents Keith had were probably reserved for the dead.

“Maybe Lotor will grace us with his presence after sun down and you won’t have to think so hard about his vague journaling.”

Keith lowered his hand and glared at Lance. Pidge had left to help Hunk at the office, leaving him to deal with Lance’s particular brand of humor alone. “What are you doing?”

Lance didn’t look up from his phone to answer. “I’ve come across a name twice in the last journal before Lotor’s incident at the Garrison. If they’re still around, maybe Pidge can track them down and ask questions.”

“It’s been fifteen years. And gateway researchers don’t answer questions.”

Lance put down his phone and gave Keith a tired look. “I don’t expect the name to lead anywhere, but Pidge and Hunk are already at the office collecting more tech. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this researcher will spill secrets.”

They could use luck, but Keith wouldn’t place hope into the idea. “Open a gateway. I want to search for your energy as you use it.”

Lance opened his mouth to argue but closed it with a sigh and turned toward the window. “Fine. But I haven’t slept, so make it quick.”

Keith closed his eyes and concentrated on his new sense that had been focused on Shiro. The moment Lance opened a gateway, Keith felt the slightest shift just outside of his awareness. He chased it and grabbed onto it before it could slip out of his perception.

It scalded sudden and quick. Keith pushed back with such force his chair crashed to its side, but the pain wasn’t a physical thing he could flee. Severing his mental connection stopped it as fast as it had started.

Startled, Lance closed his gateway and pushed to his feet. “What was that? I felt...” he frowned, at a loss for explanation. “Something.”

Keith took a breath through his teeth. “I found your energy.”

“Yeah? Will you be able to siphon it? That looked like it hurt.”

“It did.”

Lance spread his hands out and grinned. “Well, you know, every rose has thorns.”

Keith righted his chair but didn’t sit. The newness might’ve caused the reaction, but he wasn’t certain he had whatever abilities Lotor had had. “Let’s try again.”

“It’s your paranormal sensitivity, not mine, you might damage, but are you sure?”

“Again,” Keith repeated.

Lance frowned but dropped further argument.

 

* * *

 

“It would be easiest if this one allowed me to possess him.” Lotor stood beside Lance with his arms at his sides. The suggestion hadn’t sounded like a threat, but Shiro’s defenses went up anyway.

“We now call that corruption, and I won’t allow it.”

Lotor inclined his head. “I could better assist in the rescue of your body. The exorcist won’t be harmed if he’s compliant.”

“No.” Shiro knew Lotor still had the upper hand and could force the issue. He understood Lotor knew this too. However, Lotor nodded once and moved away from Lance.

 Lance opened a gateway and it drew Shiro’s attention just as the many ones before it had. The desire to enter hadn’t subsided. The part of his being that recognized death, or like-death, was drawn to that “Beyond.”

Lotor motioned toward Keith. “Do you believe this one capable of forcing a gateway between access points?”

“He’s opened an unstable gateway before.”

“To get to where your body must be, he must drag a stable gateway into an unstable position without closing it, hold it for your entrance, and drag it back into the original point for your return. It won’t be the same unintentional technique he’s used before.”

“What you describe isn’t possible.” Shiro’s argument held confidence he didn’t feel. Once again, Lotor’s words stirred memories Shiro couldn’t grasp. “Once a gateway is opened it can’t be repositioned.”

“If this one is wise, he’ll chose a position that requires the least amount of drag in order to produce one on purpose.” Lotor faced Shiro and crossed his arms. “Have you attempted this technique?”

Shiro had not. He’d accepted the strain to simply hold one open as a sign to keep it steady, but his natural ability had never been at Keith’s level. Or maybe he had but could no longer remember. “Why shift the gateway at all?”

Lotor looked over his shoulder at the two exorcists. “It warps reality and forces the two sides of the world to blend.”

That sparked a faint recollection in Shiro’s memory but it skirted away too quickly. “Are there long-term effects?”

“No matter how much damage the living may inflict onto the veil, the world will self-correct to maintain the appropriate boundary between them and the dead.”

“Why explain this to me instead of to Keith?”

“I’ll let you instruct the exorcists on my behalf.”

Shiro crossed his arms, unsure why Lotor’s persistent refusal to communicate with the team upset him. “How did you discover a gateway could be moved in this manner?”

“My natural talent was beyond average from a young age. I made friends with the dead my mother would call to her for clients who wished to communicate with a loved one. Curiosity and boredom created the catalyst of my research.”

Lance opened a new gateway and Shiro shifted, trying to ignore the attraction of it. “You were young when you started?”

“I was my father’s anchor. That sort of link at such a formidable age shaped my interests.”

Shiro looked at Lotor, hearing a subtle tone of distaste that hadn’t been there before. “Are you still his anchor?”

“No. However, I do have his thread.” Lotor raised his wrist slightly to indicate the bundle collected there.

Shiro forced his gaze away. “What are the chances I can retrieve my body?”

“If your link to this world is severed when you’re within a gateway, you won’t return. That’s the greatest probability.”

“Does your collection of threads decrease your chances you’ll cross into the gateway without a way back?”

Lotor studied Shiro for a moment and shifted his gaze to Keith. “Yes.”

Shiro touched the damaged end of his original anchor Lotor had ripped away. He wouldn’t inflict that type of loss onto another. His one thread would have to be enough.

 

* * *

 

Keith stared at the ceiling and focused on Shiro’s presence skirting his perception. An hour ago, he’d been sent to the floor below the fourteenth to rest and replenish his energy needed to open a gateway for Shiro later, but sleep was the last thing on his mind.

The curtains shifted in a breeze he couldn’t feel. He sat up and studied how Shiro’s presence felt in a closer proximity. If he concentrated long enough, the inside of his wrist tingled like a small electric current, but it only lasted a moment, and Keith couldn’t be certain if it was a physical or a perceived response.

“Shiro,” Keith whispered and turned his head just as Shiro’s form appeared faintly beside him.

“Hey.” Shiro smiled and touched Keith’s cheek. “You should be resting.”

“I have time.” Keith swallowed. He felt like he stood at the edge of something he couldn’t take back no matter the outcome. “This will work, right?”

“It will.” Shiro touched the back of two fingers to Keith’s cheek. The gesture warmed Keith despite the overwhelming feeling that it was meant as a goodbye this time. “Lotor is here,” Shiro said and faded a bit. “We’re going to tell you how to retrieve my body.”

“How can he be sure this will work?” Keith asked. The voice that answered he recognized from his brief swimming pool encounter with Lotor.

“You don’t have another way, do you?”

Keith frowned and touched the inside of his wrist where Shiro had indicated his anchor point. The only other option was to continue on with a ghost fiancé who would eventually deteriorate just like many others had. It would only be more borrowed time.

“No.” Keith got to his feet. “Tell me everything.”

 

* * *

 

Pidge taped down the last of the cords and stood back to study the massive control center she and Hunk had spent hours preparing. The tables and borrowed room service carts that lined the hallway housed computers monitoring the multiple feeds of different angles and types of surveillance. Nothing would happen without data for Pidge to obsess over.

“Okay.” Hunk stood from the last cart in the row. “We have two power sources and double on each source. I don’t think we can be more prepared.”

“We could,” Pidge argued. “But not in the timeframe we had.”

The elevator chimed and both turned. Lance strolled toward them and stopped short, mouth agape. “You weren’t kidding about extra equipment.” Lance poked at the nearest tower of CPUs and Pidge slapped his hand.

“Don’t touch anything. Where’s Keith?”

Lance rubbed the back of his hand. “I don’t know. And I’m not happy about being a human battery. It isn’t a pleasant sensation having energy siphoned.”

“Ah, poor Lance,” Hunk said in a way that made it impossible to tell if it had been sarcasm or true sympathy.

Lance sighed and leaned against the wall next to the pool door. He looked through the glass inlay and asked, “Did you find that researcher?”

“Acxa. Yeah I found her.” Pidge pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. “I looked through her classified Garrison employee file too. She and Lotor were hired at the same time.”

“Is she still with the Garrison?”

“No. She bailed after Lotor’s disappearance, and the Garrison lost track of her.”

Lance groaned. “Just great. Another dead end.”

“Not exactly. The Garrison isn’t Matt. He was able to find her.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Well. No.” Pidge dropped her phone onto the nearest cluttered surface. “She didn’t answer any of my calls, but I left her a few voicemails.”

Lance stared at her. “So. Another dead end.”

“For now.” Pidge shrugged. “She could call me back.”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

The elevator chimed again and all three glanced down the hall. Keith approached with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “I talked with Shiro and Lotor,” he said in place of a greeting. “Let’s do this.”

 

* * *

 

“Don’t zap me into another dimension,” Lance said with his arms crossed low over his chest. He still wore his Garrison approved suit but his tie was now missing and he’d rolled up his sleeves to his elbows.

“I don’t think gateways go to dimensions,” Pidge replied even though the order had been directed at Keith. “Although, since we don’t know exactly what they are or where they lead, it could be possible the dead travel to another dimension, but I find that highly improbable.”

Lance took a breath and directed his gaze at Pidge. “Are you done fiddling with every piece of equipment the Garrison owns?”

Pidge clicked the battery compartment closed and handed the camera to Lance. “Final checks are complete. Put that back on and we’re good to go.”

Lance pushed the camera back into the strap in his chest. Pidge wanted a view from the exorcists’ perspectives but Keith refused the gear, stating he wasn’t there officially and had the option to deny Pidge’s request.

“We’re good, Keith,” Pidge said.

Keith looked over his shoulder. He stood a few paces in front of Lance, out of the entrance but still a good distance from the pool. “We’ll start when you’re back in the hallway.”

Pidge rolled her eyes but nodded. “I still don’t think the hallway is any safer from a gateway gone haywire.”

“If the hallway is safe, why do I have to be in here with you? I bet you could siphon from that distance.” Lance’s comment was ignored. Pidge patted his arm and left the room.

Keith heard Lance’s sharp intake of air and slow release. “I won’t zap you to another dimension,” he said.

“Thanks, buddy.” Lance’s tone was dry and the sarcasm potent.

“I’m starting.” Comforted by Shiro’s nearby presence, Keith steadied his breathing and searched for a placement to open a stable gateway. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Lance cleared his throat and opened a gateway so Keith could find his energy. “Don’t send me to the hospital either.”

“I got it. Close your gateway now.”

Lance complied and Keith felt the change in his gateway’s energy level. He hesitated at the cusp of something he didn’t fully understand, but took a determined breath and forced his gateway to move.

It had seemed so much easier three months before, but then Keith hadn’t had time to think about where to place his gateway. He’d been focused on dealing with a threat—a threat he now chose to believe and trust.

“Keith. Hurry it up.” Lance’s impatience held more strain than Keith expected, but even his own energy was already beginning to dwindle. Gateways weren’t held open for longer than a few seconds—it never took long to coax a wayward phantom into one.

He could see something beyond that colorless void a gateway created, but he knew full well the human mind could and would project images on abstract canvases. Lotor had said Keith would know when Shiro had returned to his body, but he couldn’t say how Keith would know. If he closed it too early, it could separate Shiro from his body again.

“Do you see Shiro?” Keith asked. With his focus and energy on the gateway, he couldn’t sense him, and he hadn’t seen a figure near his gateway.

“No.” Lance grunted behind him and Keith cast a quick glance back. Lance was still on his feet but had one hand pressed against the wall for support.

A sudden yank on his gateway like a weight dropped on his shoulders jarred Keith’s concentration just enough to tug on his siphon of Lance’s energy. He looked back but nothing had visually changed. The strain physically hurt beyond the usual headache that came with prolonged energy manipulation. Keith gritted his teeth and focused to keep his gateway open and steady.

“Keith, you have to let Lance go,” Pidge shouted behind him, her voice muffled and far away.

Keith risked a glance over his shoulder. Pidge knelt beside a collapsed Lance. Keith would sacrifice anything for Shiro, but he wouldn’t ask the same from anyone else. He released his siphon of Lance’s energy and took the full weight of the gateway. He thought he could maintain it, but the strain became too much.

He tried to drag the gateway back into the original position but lost his grip and felt it snap out of his control. The repercussion as it slipped his grasp sent a wave of energy outward that knocked Keith off his feet. His back slammed onto the tile floor, punching all the air out of his lungs. Any light fixture and bulb that Lotor hadn’t destroyed earlier now burst and showered debris. Keith flung up his arms to protect his face.

After several failed attempts, Keith dragged in a painful breath and took several additional seconds before he rolled to his side and searched for Pidge and Lance. He found them pushed closer to the wall but conscious and, more importantly, not trapped in his gateway. With effort, he pushed to his elbows and looked across the now darkened room. Under just moonlight illuminating the space, Keith could make out a figure sprawled on the floor where his gateway had been.

Exhausted from his energy manipulation, Keith staggered to his feet and stumbled the distance to Shiro’s side. He dropped to his knees and took a shaky breath. A part of him feared it was another apparition and his hope would break with his heart.

“Shiro?” Keith touched Shiro’s chin and turned his face. His skin was marred by what looked like a fresh cut crossed the bridge of his nose, but he was warm to the touch. His black hair had turned white, but he drew even, steady breaths through parted lips rich with color.

Keith put his hand on Shiro’s chest and felt the rise and fall of his breath and the comforting rhythm of his heartbeat. Relief replaced his adrenaline and Keith lowered his head onto Shiro’s breast.

 “Keith?” For a pained moment Keith believed the whispered voice to be the same supernatural phenomenon he’d experienced for three months. Hesitantly he raised his head and looked at Shiro’s face. The smile that filled his vision was as warm as Shiro’s fingers when he reached up and touched Keith’s cheek. “You found me.”

“Shiro.” Happiness bubbled in Keith’s chest and broke into his throat on a sob. He wrapped his arms around the man he had risked frostbite to hold. Shiro was tangible, alive, and whole. When Keith kissed him, he tasted the intensity of Shiro’s happiness that reflected his own joy.


	12. Practiced Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith smoothed his hand across Shiro’s chest and rested it on his hip. “What’s wrong?”  
> “Nothing.”  
> Keith knew all the ways Shiro lied, so he recognized the practiced smile and false comfort for what they were. Shiro couldn’t fool Keith, but given enough time, Shiro could convince himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've ever had a story stick to an outline but this one was supposed to be a shorter story. Oh well. One chapter to go and I really hope I'm able to post it on Halloween (or the day before).

**Chapter 12**

Keith sat in a chair beside Pidge in the hallway humming with electrical life and Keith’s nerves. Pidge had begun to comb through the data and had discovered the video files had all been corrupted at the same point.

“None of the Garrison’s current tech can capture whatever energy output an unstable gateway produces. I wonder how the gateway research team has worked around this problem,” Pidge muttered and paused the static. “I don’t think I can clean this up enough to see anything.”

Pidge glanced at Keith who’d heard her but had no input. She followed his gaze to where Hunk had taken Shiro and a first aid kit so he could administer treatment away from Keith’s doting and worried hands.

“The injury probably happened at Melrose Court,” she said.

Keith had thought the same thing. Shiro’s blood had been found in the glass from the broken curio cabinets, and Keith had suffered a few minor cuts from the debris. “Time froze for Shiro’s body in my gateway.” Keith had thought about it, and no other explanation could account for the fresh cut.

“It seems likely,” Pidge agreed. “For organic matter or all matter, we don’t know and we might never learn. It isn’t like we can ask the truly dead what happens after they enter a gateway.”

Keith shifted in his seat and watched Hunk press a piece of gaze soaked in what was probably disinfectant to Shiro’s cut and the wince Shiro tried and failed to control. Keith returned his gaze to Pidge.

“Is Lance okay?” Keith saw him leave the pool area with Hunk’s assistance, and knew he rested on the cot in the conference room, but anything beyond the usual fatigue caused by excess energy drain would be Keith’s fault.

“Lance is exhausted from strenuous energy usage, but he’s probably okay. The Garrison warns about taxing yourself for a reason. It isn’t all that uncommon for an exorcist to fall into a coma.” Pidge’s face pinched in rare anger she quickly covered. “Siphoning energy was stupid and I shouldn’t have allowed it.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith whispered. And he was truly sorry. He regretted placing the others in danger for a selfish reason.

“I wanted Shiro back too.” Pidge let out a soft sigh and touched the group of wires that fed into the equipment still spread across the tables. “I’m glad it worked and we got him back. Unfortunately, we have no way to diagnosis any internal or brain injuries in a hotel, and none of Lotor’s journals mentioned theories about what a gateway does to a living body.”

The reminder wasn’t needed. Keith had already wondered what other injuries Shiro might’ve had that night, or from the gateway itself. “I don’t think any doctor would see a legally dead patient.”

“The legally dead part is going to be a pain to correct, but before then, Lance offered his sister’s services. Her medical knowledge won’t cross into the paranormal, but we can rule out injuries from Melrose court.”

“This wasn’t necromancy,” Keith said. “We didn’t break natural laws by retrieving his body, so he should be fine, right?”

Pidge hesitated a moment too long. “We don’t know what a gateway does to a living body, or if natural laws apply to this particular gateway glitch. If we did break a natural law, it shouldn’t take long for punishments to appear.”

Keith inhaled sharply and nodded. Human laws prohibited necromancy as a deterrent to protect bystanders from collateral damage caused by paranormal punishments doled out to the raised. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“I know you will.” Pidge watched Hunk finish up the application of liquid bandages. “Acxa called me back right after you opened your gateway. She had some interesting things to say about Lotor and you might want to know.”

“Can it wait?”

“Probably.”

“Then tell me later.” Keith’s attention turned to Shiro as he walked toward them. His cut looked better, but it was still an uncomfortable reminder of Shiro’s ghostly appearance over the last three months.

“Hey.” Shiro stopped and smiled in a way that spoke more of his uncertainty than his voice betrayed.

“Feel better?” Pidge asked after the silence stretched to almost uncomfortable length.

“My face does.” Shiro touched his cheek and lowered his hand. “But I still feel...strange. It’s like I’m trying to wake up from a dream.”

Pidge shared a look with Keith. “Do you remember the last three months?” She asked.

Shiro blew out a breath. “I think I do, but it doesn’t feel real.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if those memories fade. Your disembodied form probably wasn’t connected to your brain in a way to map memories.” Pidge got to her feet and stretched. “You two should go home and get some rest.”

Keith wanted desperately to be alone with Shiro, but it didn’t feel right to leave things unfinished at the hotel. “Lotor is still here.”

“Shiro can’t open a gateway for Lotor today. He’s clearly as exhausted as you. Go home.”

“I think I would like to rest,” Shiro agreed and caught Keith’s gaze. Something in his eyes told Keith rest wasn’t exactly high on his list of things he would like to do.

Keith smiled and got to his feet. “Let’s go home.”

 

* * *

  
 

They left hotel Altea together. Keith collected his helmet at the front desk and ignored Coran’s confused glance directed at Shiro. The helmet went to Shiro after a short argument about who should wear it. Keith won. He would’ve given Shiro his riding jacket too if it would’ve fit, but Shiro didn’t complain about his suit worn for the Melrose case as his only protection against the winter morning temperate.

At the first stoplight Shiro leaned forward and spoke near Keith’s ear. There was an edge of happiness to his voice that made Keith’s chest feel light. “I’ve missed this.”

Keith looked at the bare tree branches against a brightening sky. His breath fogged in the freezing temperature but Shiro’s body was warm against his. Keith had missed it too.

“The air against my skin,” Shiro continued. “I thought I knew cold, but stinging numbness is a flesh thing.” He tightened his hold around Keith’s waist, and slipped a hand beneath his jacket. “I’ve also missed your body heat.”

Keith swallowed. He’d missed the way Shiro held him. Shiro had often accepted a ride on the back of Keith’s bike, and each time had been a type of flirtation that ended with heated kisses and tripping on the stairs in their haste to the bedroom.

Shiro shifted his hold. “But the thrill of how you don’t even tense when you blatantly break several traffic laws in session is high on my list of things I’m happy to experience again.”

Keith let out a soft laugh that fogged in the morning air. He wanted to say a thousand things, but his words could never convey the magnitude of his relief and love. “It’s good to have you back, Shiro.”

Shiro hugged Keith a little tighter. “It’s good to be back.”

 

* * *

  
 

Once home, Shiro shed his suit and ducked into the bathroom for a hot shower. Keith opened the bedroom closet and dragged out the boxes of Shiro’s clothing and personal items he’d packed away, hidden from his grief.

He opened the first and pulled out the top folded sweater. It was a white wool blend that had been a favorite of Keith’s. He brought it up to his face and inhaled the lingering scent of laundry detergent and Shiro. Unwashed but only worn once, it still held enough memories to yank Keith’s grief out of hiding.

His pain was now mixed with relief of Shiro’s return, but it stung just as deep as before. Despite Shiro’s presence, the bruises caused by his absence remained sore and tender. Keith lowered the sweater and stared at the opened box.

“Keith?”

Keith looked up, startled by Shiro’s voice. He swallowed hard and wiped a stray tear from his cheek. “I was just getting you clothes.”

Shiro’s white hair was wet and he’d wrapped a towel around his waist. “You kept everything.” It wasn’t a question. Shiro had either seen it as a spirit, or he had known Keith would. He took the sweater from Keith’s hands and dropped it into the box. “Thank you.” He cupped Keith’s cheek and kissed him. It was a gentle touch of his lips that requested instead of demanded a response.

Keith sighed and wrapped his arms around Shiro’s shoulders, pulling him closer. He could smell soap, feel the living heat radiating from Shiro’s body, and taste him. It had been what he’d dreamed of for three months living with the cold ghost of the man he loved.

Shiro pulled away, but withdrew only far enough to bury his face in the crook of Keith’s neck and inhale.

“I forgot what you felt like.” Shiro whispered his confession against Keith’s skin. Keith hadn’t forgotten the way Shiro would shiver beneath his fingertips or the way his sweat tasted on his lips, but memories would’ve faded and they were poor substitutes for the real thing.

“Keith.” Shiro kept his voice low, no longer masking the desperation of a man back from death. “I need you.”

It was Keith’s turn to cup Shiro’s face and kiss him. For three months Shiro had given Keith what he needed to dull the worst of his grief. The energy he got in return was a beneficial bonus for them both. And now Shiro needed Keith to be tangible confirmation that blood pumped in his veins again—that the last three months would become nothing but a distant memory.

Keith shed his clothing quickly. There would be time to tease with slowly exposed skin and messy kisses, but this was not it. No. The air crackled with a shared need that would only be satisfied by bare flesh against flesh, warm with life and heated by desire.

They tumbled together onto the bed. Shiro let out a groan of gratification when Keith slipped between his thighs and hugged their bodies together. Where they touched affirmed the truth of Shiro’s return to a body that throbbed with life. Keith kissed his jaw and whispered words Shiro had heard a thousand times before but never enough. The promises of a lifetime and declarations of love peppered all the places Keith placed his lips, sealing his words with caresses that affirmed his love.

A sense of urgency rose in the air, and Keith fought to ignore it, but he couldn’t ignore the way Shiro trembled, shifted beneath his exploring lips, and whispered his request.

“Fuck me.”

Vulgarity had been Keith’s thing, not Shiro’s, but even Shiro had a limit to his patience. Keith slipped out of his arms and dug in the bedside table for the bottle of lube. No more paranormal ways to skip prep.

When Keith pressed into Shiro, he watched the way Shiro’s head tilted back on an inhaled breath and his teeth caught his lower lip to stifle what would’ve been a beautiful sound. Keith brushed back Shiro’s hair and tested movement.

His slow pace gradually gave way to Shiro’s push of his hips. Keith followed Shiro’s cues and gave him what he wanted—needed. Their hard breath mingled. Shiro met Keith’s rhythm, spilling incoherent words, broken on lust and a profound relief words could never explain.

 

* * *

  
 

Keith dreamed of darkness. He dreamed of water. He dreamed of suffocation.

Treading dark waters his hungry lungs couldn’t find air. He searched the blackness for any semblance of light but found no hint of salvation. Before panic settled across his limbs he caught a streak of color—of white hair.

Keith started with a gasp and heat pooling in his legs and arms. He looked into darkness outlining familiar shapes of his bedroom and reached across the bed for Shiro. When his hand met cold sheets, he sat up with gasp. “Shiro.”

“I’m here.”

Keith looked toward his voice and found Shiro standing at the window. Moonlight bathed his bare chest in soft light. Keith sighed and rubbed his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake you. Bad dream?”

“A weird dream.” Keith studied Shiro’s carefully controlled expression he couldn’t quite make out across the distance and with only moonlight. “What are you looking at?”

“Life.” Shiro sucked in a breath and returned to bed, sliding in next to Keith. His skin was chilled but remained warm with life. “I think it might snow.”

Keith smoothed his hand across Shiro’s chest and rested it on his hip. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Keith knew all the ways Shiro lied, so he recognized the practiced smile and false comfort for what they were. Shiro couldn’t fool Keith, but given enough time, Shiro could convince himself.

“Tell me,” Keith pressed.

Shiro drew Keith into his arms. With his head tucked under Shiro’s chin Keith couldn’t see his face but would give him time to answer before he pressed further.

“I’m not sure I can put it into words,” Shiro finally whispered. Keith waited, knowing Shiro would try to piece his thoughts together. After a stretch of silence, Shiro inhaled a deep breath and spoke in a voice that betrayed his concern. “It’s like my body doesn’t fit me anymore.”

Keith pressed closer into Shiro’s embrace. Pidge’s concern repeated in his mind. They don’t know what harm, if any, a gateway could do to living body, or if what had happened to Shiro wasn’t a form of necromancy. “You spent three months as a disembodied spirit. Maybe you just need more time to adjust.”

“That could be it.” Shiro smoothed his hand down Keith’s back. The silence lasted so long Keith thought Shiro intended for the discussion to end. “It feels like a shirt put on backward,” Shiro said, soft enough Keith strained to hear. “My arms and head fit, but it isn’t right.”

Somehow a smaller twinge of discomfort seemed worse than if everything had felt strange. Keith turned his head and let his ear rest over the comforting sound of Shiro’s heartbeat. He couldn’t put to words the magnitude of his worry and love for this man, or explain the length he’d go to protect the future they’d promised each other. Their promise meant more than any natural or supernatural law that laid claim on Shiro.

“We can’t turn the shirt inside out,” Keith said. “But I don’t think we need to. You’ll be fine.”

Shiro’s chest rose with his inhale. “I’ll be fine.”

It sounded like a lie.

 

* * *

 

After dawn filled their townhouse with sunlight, they rose together for the first time in three months. After a stared shower that wasted more time and water than cleaned either one, Keith pressed a passing kiss on Shiro’s bare shoulder on his way into the hallway and caught a glimpse of Shiro’s smile in the mirror. He left him to shave and crossed the hall into the bedroom.

A crack rang with the familiar pitch of broken glass halted his progress and broke the serenity of the morning. Keith retraced his steps into the hallway. From his location he could see the tightness in Shiro’s posture and his wide-eyed shock.

“What happened?” Keith reached the bathroom doorway. Shiro blinked a few times before he could drag his gaze onto Keith. Across from him the medicine cabinet mirror reflected his alarmed expression in multiple shards. Keith followed the pattern of breaks to the corner where Shiro’s fingertip lifted and left a red mark. “You’re hurt.”

Shiro stared at his finger and the blood that beaded until it dripped onto the sink. “I’m fine.” The blandness of his tone betrayed his anxiety more than any tilt of emotion. “I didn’t realize—I must’ve pressed too hard when I closed the cabinet.”

Keith took Shiro’s hand in his and felt the way he trembled. Keith forced a smile and met Shiro’s gaze. It was possible Shiro had misjudged the strength needed to close the cabinet, but the explanation felt wrong. “The mirror was old. This was going to happen eventually.”

“I’m fine,” Shiro repeated and pulled his hand free, seeming to come out of his haze. He ran his finger under the tap and turned to grab a towel. “Do we have anything for breakfast?”

Their meals yesterday had been takeout. Keith hadn’t kept the fridge or pantry stocked in Shiro’s absence. They’d need groceries. “No.” He glanced at the shattered mirror. “Let’s go out.”

“Okay.” Shiro started around Keith but stopped and kissed his temple before he moved into the hallway and further to the bedroom.

Keith kept his gaze on the mirror and turned off the light, aware of the uneasy sensation that had curled itself around his ribs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	13. Permanent Resident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lotor didn't go far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I expected to post this much earlier.
> 
> This is the final chapter (an epilogue posted at the same time)! Thank you for reading despite how long I took to write it lol   
> I'm happy to finish it and maybe move onto something else.
> 
> Thank you!

**Chapter 13**

They couldn’t go to a nearby restaurant and risk a regular or employee would recognize Shiro with his new, lighter hair. Keith could go into the same place a hundred times and remain a stranger, but not Shiro. People liked Shiro. His absence and return would be noted.

So they found a local diner that looked crowded enough to guarantee less attention and shared one side of a booth tucked into a corner with their backs to the wall. Shiro rested his arm on the cushion behind Keith’s head, lightly brushing Keith’s hair as if he needed the tactile reassurance. He wore the wool blend sweater that almost matched his hair, but despite a different hair color, the morning reminded Keith of the many they’d shared before Melrose court. Contentment bloomed in his chest and he could pretend their lives hadn’t changed—that the last three months hadn’t happened.

Despite the kindling of happiness, Keith couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It sat cold and hard in his stomach, but Keith couldn’t give it a name.

Shiro cut into a link of sausage and offered the piece to Keith. Keith glanced at his plate and realized Shiro had fed most of his breakfast to him. It wasn’t uncommon for them to exchange bites without establishing a plan to share, but this morning Shiro had given more to Keith than he’d eaten himself. Under normal circumstances Keith wouldn’t question it, but circumstances weren’t normal.

“You picked at meals yesterday,” Keith said. The lack of appetite could’ve been a side effect of the gateway but he needed to be certain. “And you aren’t eating much now.”

Shiro lowered the offered piece of sausage back to the plate. He didn’t attempt to brush off Keith’s concern with a smile. “I still feel a little out of sorts.”

“Does food taste bad, Shiro?”

Shiro’s eyes widened slightly. He would know why Keith asked. Losing one of the main senses was side effect of necromancy. The most common was taste. It would be the first in a long and miserable list of punishment doled out by nature for breaking a natural law.

“Everything tastes as it should,” Shiro said. “It’s more of a mental hurdle than physical.” He put down his fork and rubbed his engagement ring that had been returned to his finger the night before. “We need to talk about the Garrison—specifically the gateway research division.”

Shiro had been proud of his acceptance into the coveted position. It came with a heavy burden of secrecy he had never broken with Keith before. Keith pushed his plate away. “Are you sure? You signed some pretty hefty nondisclosure agreements.”

“Paperwork doesn’t mean much to the legally dead.” He offered a wry smile. “I believed in what the Garrison does. Maybe I still do. I don’t know. But if you or Pidge had known apparitions could communicate, maybe things after Melrose court would’ve been different.”

“Maybe,” Keith agreed but it hadn’t taken Shiro long to convince him his ghostly form wasn’t a memory stain as the Garrison taught.

“What matters to the current situation is the agreement I made with Lotor,” Shiro continued. “It’s been bothering me.”

“Do you remember the discussions you two had?”

“Vaguely.” Shiro touched his temple. “I recall less this morning. The knowledge I have now that I’m back in my body I didn’t have while apart from it.”

“I know,” Keith whispered. Shiro’s memories had been fleeting from the moment he first appeared disembodied to Keith. “Now that you’re whole again, you see a problem in the agreement to get Lotor his body?”

“Yes. A gateway is linked to the exorcist. That link is made of the same thing that creates a phantom’s tether—their soul.”

“The Garrison knows about tethers too?”

“Yes.” Shiro rubbed his thumb along the lip of his coffee mug. “Lotor wanted me to open and transfer control of a gateway to him in order to reach his body. However, the transfer of a link formed with a person’s essence is impossible even if one exorcist is siphoning energy from the other.”

None of Lotor’s journals mentioned gateway control transfer, but Keith hadn’t thought it strange at the time. They hadn’t been able to review every page either.

“But even if it was possible,” Shiro continued. “It’s unnecessary.”

“What?”

“The link is different but the destination is not. An item, or living matter, placed in a gateway will be there no matter who opens a connection. Lotor’s body was probably near mine. It had to have been.”

The request had seemed odd, but the Garrison had secrets and Keith couldn’t have known this was not one of them. “Is it possible Lotor forgot? You were disembodied for three months, but he’s been this way for fifteen years.”

“It’s possible, but he knew so much I had forgotten—or never knew. I think. It’s a little hazy.” Shiro pressed his fingertips to his closed eyes.

“Is there a penalty for a broken promise made with a ghost?”

Shiro lowered his hand. “Probably nothing but a curse on my lineage.”

“I’m serious. What if Lotor actually wanted a loophole through paranormal punishment? He just needed to get you to agree on a task you couldn’t complete.”

“Promises made to a ghost aren’t the same as natural laws like necromancy, but he was given access to his body at the time you caused the distortion between the veil. He wouldn’t need a loophole—what he wanted from me was already given by you.”

Keith caught the glimpse of something like fear cross Shiro’s features before he smoothed his expression back to neutral. If Lotor had tricked him, the reason why wasn’t obvious. The heavy, cold lump in Keith’s gut twisted.

 “We should visit Hotel Altea,” Keith said. It would do little to ease Shiro’s worries, but it was a place to start.

Shiro touched his chest, took a deep breath, and moved his hand to Keith’s thigh. “He collected tethers and refused to expend energy even though he had so much extra. Why would he need that much stored energy? I can’t help but think I’m overlooking something important.”

Keith leaned against Shiro, feeling his warmth beneath the soft wool blend of his sweater. “We have time to figure this out.”

Shiro’s smile was brittle. “I hope we do.”

 

* * *

 

Pidge met them in Hotel Altea’s lobby after breakfast. Keith had texted when they left the restaurant. She hesitated only a moment before she launched herself into Shiro’s open arms for the biggest hug her small body could give.

“Katie.” Shiro spoke through a laugh. The sound warmed Keith’s heart. It had been too long since he’d heard genuine mirth in Shiro’s laughter—or his laugh at all.

“It’s so good to see you.” Pidge took a step back.

“It’s good to be back. Thank you for helping Keith.”

Pidge took his hand that wasn’t holding his black riding helmet and started across the lobby. “Do you remember what it’s like on the other side of the veil?”

“A little.” Shiro followed without protest. “I think I’ve forgotten most of it by now.”

“Then we need to interview before we discuss Lotor. Hunk and I have a table at the bar.”

Keith hung back. “I want to check upstairs.”

Pidge looked over her shoulder. “Lance is up there.”

“I’ll join you afterward.” Shiro gave Keith’s hand a squeeze and took his red helmet.

“Thanks. I’ll be back soon.” Keith parted ways, reluctant to have Shiro out of his sight even for a few minutes, but he wanted to see the situation on the fourteenth floor before he brought Shiro to talk to Lotor again.

He took the elevator and stepped into a hallway filled with the soft murmur of conversion. He followed the noise to the door propped open into the pool area. Three repair men talked to each other as they replaced lights destroyed by Keith’s gateway rebound.

“I told them not to start repairs,” Lance said, coming up beside Keith. He tucked his tablet under his arm. “We don’t know if Lotor will break everything again.”

“You okay?” Keith asked, sliding his gaze to his face. He appeared recovered.

“Of course I am.” Lance snorted with feigned insult. “I slept for thirteen hours.”

Keith stepped away from the door. Even without the hotel staff the floor felt different. “Is Lotor still here?”

“He hasn’t made a peep, but it isn’t like he ever communicated like normal hauntings anyway.”

Keith made a quiet noise of acknowledgment and headed for the alcove of vending machines. Lance tagged along.

“How’s Shiro?”

“He’s fine,” Keith answered. “He’s downstairs with Pidge and Hunk.” He studied the machines and searched for a presence. He felt nothing.

“You using your ghost radar?” Lance studied his fingernails.

Keith nodded and sighed. “Lotor might return later. He’s definitely not here now.”

“I saw two figures near your gateway before I almost blacked out. Think Lotor got pulled into it? Would we be that lucky?”

“Lotor wouldn’t get too close to a gateway when he’s actively fought them before.”

“There’s another possibility, but you say Shiro is fine.”

Keith narrowed his eyes. He caught Lance’s suggestion of possession, but there was no way Shiro was anyone but himself.

“Corruption—possession—would be fairly easy to spot,” Lance continued as if Keith had voiced his rejection of the idea. He crossed his arms and blew out a deep breath. “Best case scenario would be Lotor took the gateway to wherever the dead go. He moved on, so to speak.”

“If his living body is trapped in a gateway, he’ll just be ejected again.”

Lance frowned, confused by the statement. “Pidge didn’t tell you what Acxa said?”

“Who’s Acxa?”

“She was Lotor’s research partner before they joined the Garrison. She returned Pidge’s message just about the time you opened your gateway.”

Keith remembered Pidge had mentioned a phone call. “And?”

“Acxa was there when Lotor’s body disappeared into his gateway. After Iverson ceased rescue efforts, Acxa and two others continued trying on the down low. They succeeded, but it was too late."

“What are you talking about?”

“Lotor is dead. Like, dead-dead. Cremated-dead. There’s no body for him to find because Acxa already retrieved it as a corpse. Either Lotor lied to Shiro or he truly doesn’t remember. My money’s on lying. His journals are filled with the idea that possession is a form of necromancy. He wouldn’t be able to resist Shiro’s body essentially empty and waiting for a soul.”

Lotor possessing Shiro made sense, but Keith knew Shiro and he was definitely himself even if slightly off. Anyone would be out of sorts after Shiro’s experience. “I haven’t seen signs of possession. What else did Acxa say?”

Lance leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Lotor tried several times to possess several of the gateway researchers. He escaped the Garrison building after he was successful. Did you know the walls in the research area are lined with salt to keep phantoms out? Or in, I guess.”

“No, I didn’t. Has Lotor been roaming around for fifteen years?”

“He needed someone with weak enough energy for him to overpower and possess, and that took about two years. Obviously, none of their attempts to exercise worked because he used the gateways like we experienced.”

Keith touched his wrist. “Shiro said it’s like his body doesn’t fit. Lotor could be...” he paused, not wanting to put it to words.

“If they both got into Shiro’s body at the same time, Lotor could be filling space and Shiro senses it as an ill-fitting body,” Lance voiced Keith’s worry. “Gross,” he added in a whisper.

Keith didn’t want to believe it even if it made sense. “His reflection,” he whispered and Lance tilted his head. “The mirror broke this morning when Shiro was shaving.”

“Think Lotor didn’t like what he saw and busted the mirror like he’s a level three haunting?”

“It proves Lotor isn’t the one in control if he’s behaving like a haunting. Essentially, he’s haunting Shiro until he can take control of his body.”

“Is Shiro aware of Lotor?”

“I don’t think so.” Keith couldn’t believe he hadn’t sensed Lotor. He’d had no reason to use his “ghost radar” but any exorcist was sensitive to the presence of the dead. Which included Shiro. Shiro couldn’t see ghosts like Keith but he was able to sense them easier than Keith could. Maybe it didn’t work if the phantom was inside his own skin. “If we discuss this with Shiro, Lotor will know we suspect his presence.”

“You won’t attempt an exorcism on a living person who doesn’t know he’s possessed, right? That’s probably fatal. The Garrison doesn’t teach this particular situation, but it sounds fatal.”

Keith wouldn’t put Shiro in harm’s way. As long as Lotor stayed quiet, Keith had time to research outside of what the Garrison taught. “No. I’m saying we don’t tell Shiro, and we continue as if this conversation never happened. If Lotor makes a move, I’ll handle it.”

Lance pressed his lips into a thin line. After a few seconds he let out a sigh and nodded. “Fine. Lotor is out of the Garrison’s jurisdiction now that he left my client’s hotel, so as far as the Garrison is concerned Hotel Altea is phantom free. However, Lotor is still my responsibility and I won’t let you handle an abnormal possession by yourself. You’re his biggest obstacle, and Lotor will want you out of his way.”

Keith studied the row of vending machines. Lotor would probably harm Keith to prevent intervention. Keith wouldn’t give Shiro up to a ghost no matter the risk. “Ask Acxa if she experienced anything like this before.”

“Will do.” Lance started for the elevator. Keith fell into step beside him. “Take Shiro home and light some sage—maybe that’ll shake Lotor lose.”

Keith ignored Lance’s attempt at humor. They took the elevator to the lobby together. The doors opened to a commotion in the bar area. A small crowd dressed in Hotel Altea uniform had formed near the back wall and Keith could see Shiro’s white hair among the cluster.

“Shiro.” He rushed forward with Lance close on his heels. He found Hunk and Shiro at a table. Hunk was applying a bandage to a cut across the back of Shiro’s hand. It didn’t appear serious but Keith’s heart lurched at the sight. “What happened?”

Shiro looked up and for a moment Keith saw the flicker of worry hidden behind a calm expression.

“The mirror shattered,” Pidge said from where she stood at the booth they’d vacated. Her laptop and equipment remained scattered across the surface. She carefully picked off a larger piece of glass and added it to the pile someone in a Hotel Altea vest had created. “It just—” she spread her hands out. “Cracked and fell across the table.”

Keith studied the few shards of mirror still in the frame. He heard Lance take a sharp inhale behind him.

“My equipment shows a fluctuation in temperature, electromagnetic field, and even barometric pressure, but Hunk, Shiro, and I can’t see phantoms,” Pidge said. “Out of the three of us, only Shiro can sense them.”

“Did you sense one?” Lance asked Shiro.

Shiro flexed his fingers, testing the bandage. “No.”

Lance nodded and looked at Keith. Keith shifted his gaze to Pidge who frowned at her equipment readings. The evidence pointed to paranormal involvement, but Pidge respected Shiro enough to question the science she had never doubted before. No one wanted to consider Shiro could be wrong.

“Let’s go home.” Keith put his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “Lance needs to wrap things up here with Pidge and Hunk.”

“What about Lotor?” Shiro asked.

“We’ll take care of him later,” Keith said and Shiro looked up at him. Keith couldn’t remember ever seeing Shiro on edge or even afraid, but he could see beneath his facade to the fear he held tightly in check. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Shiro followed Keith outside but hesitated at the motorcycle, holding the black helmet in both hands. “Keith. What aren’t you telling me?”

Keith pulled on his helmet to help conceal his expression. “Nothing.”

“Two mirrors in my line of sight broke today. That’s enough to consider the possibility of a haunting.” Shiro kept his gaze on the helmet in his hands. “Except the mirrors weren’t in the same location, and I haven’t sensed the presence of a specter. What’s happening?”

Keith pushed up the visor and caught Shiro’s gaze. “I don’t know for certain, but I’m going to fix it.”

“Keith, I—” Shiro closed his eyes and breathed. “I can’t leave you again.”

“You won’t. Put on your helmet and get on the bike. Everything will be fine.”

Shiro accepted the promise with a jerky nod. Keith had no way to know whether or not he’d just lied to Shiro, but only death would prevent him from protecting Shiro.

 

* * *

 

Keith opened his laptop at the kitchen table. The Garrison was accepted as the authority on all paranormal research and activity, but there were websites with studies considered illegal by the laws bolstered by the Garrison. It was these websites Keith sought out.

Shiro tidied the living room collection of paint supplies from the remodel that had stopped in his absence, and then retreated upstairs. Keith could hear him in the bedroom above as he unpacked his belongings Keith had boxed.

The online discussions and information proved fruitless on possession—rebranded as corruption by the Garrison in an attempt to rewrite paranormal antiquity. A dead soul could overpower a living soul in a body, but the control was never permanent. The natural soul had a direct link to its body and no matter what a ghost did, the body would eventually reject the intruder.

However, in undocumented and possibly fictional accounts, if the connection to a natural soul was removed, the invasive soul could become a permanent resident in the body. Keith wasn’t sure if a gateway separated natural soul and body, but if it did and both Lotor and Shiro reached Shiro’s body, the possibilities weren’t encouraging.

Keith tapped his finger against the table, weighing his options. He hadn’t found any indication of how to remove an invasive soul. With normal possession the possessed was isolated and observed for the natural process of rejecting the ghost to occur. That wouldn’t work with Shiro if Lotor was trying to force Shiro out. Keith was at a dead end with the internet and would have to wait for Lance to reach out to Acxa.

In the silence, he realized Shiro had stopped moving upstairs or had left the bedroom. He stood and headed upstairs to check. “Shiro?” He reached the top landing. The floor was silent but the bathroom door was closed.

Keith entered the bedroom. The boxes had been emptied and folded down, but a book on the dresser caught his eye. He recognized it as one of Shiro’s case journals he’d kept before his transfer into gateway research had made his ideas relating to the paranormal proprietary and controlled by the Garrison. Keith flipped it open and read over Shiro’s notes from older cases, including his observations on his team. He smiled softly at the pang of nostalgia.

He opened toward the end where a pen marked a recent entry. The words written here made his blood run cold. It wasn’t the strange way Shiro had written his observation on their relationship that restricted his throat. The flowing penmanship matched the scanned copies Keith had spent hours reading.

“Lotor,” Keith whispered. He was too late. He had to contact Pidge and the others.

“Keith.”

Keith turned too quickly and dropped the journal. “Shiro,” he blurted even though Shiro’s posture and expression were nothing like Shiro.

“How is your research progressing?” The even tone in Shiro’s voice worked a shiver down Keith’s back.

“I hit a dead end,” Keith somehow answered, but he couldn’t be sure how normal he sounded.

“How unfortunate.” Shiro—not really Shiro, entered the room and retrieved the journal Keith had dropped. The maliciousness radiating from him forced Keith a step back. “You seem extraordinarily talented, Keith.” He made Keith’s name sound like something sour.

Keith took another step away, trying to clear a path to the door. “Thanks.”

“Unfortunately, this means you’ll become a problem.”

Keith didn’t need another warning. He bolted for the door and reached the top of the stairs before Lotor caught up to him. Lotor grasped Keith’s jacket midway down. Keith slipped out of the fabric, and stumbled down another step and lost his balance. He crashed down the final stairs.

He hit the tile below with an outstretched arm to break his fall and rolled. His back banged into the wall. Dazed and gasping for air, Keith scrambled to his feet just as Lotor wearing Shiro’s body grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him back to the floor.

“Don’t,” Lotor said with Shiro’s voice. The single word carried enough threat to silence a smarter man, but Keith couldn’t look at Shiro’s face twisted in an expression he would never have had and remain silent.

“Let me go.” Keith brought his knee up but Lotor shifted and protected soft spots. He lifted Keith and slammed him against the floor a second time. Keith squeezed his eyes shut against the burst of pain.

“You two had an inconvenient connection,” Lotor said, moving to straddle Keith and pin him down. “He fought me for you.”

“I won’t let you have Shiro’s body.”

“This isn’t possession, Keith. It’s an extermination. I snuffed out his energy. This body is mine, and you’re the only mess I need to tidy up before I leave.”

It wasn’t possible. Keith refused to believe Shiro had been extinguished. He thought back to the hotel empty of all other smaller hauntings, and how Lotor had taken Shiro’s thread. “You’re lying,” he said and heard the doubt he couldn’t mask.

“Possession can only become permanent if the weaker soul is first removed.”

“No.” Keith struggled against Lotor’s hold, but Shiro’s body was larger and stronger than him, and without Shiro’s gentle nature, it could be lethal.

“You’ve been a great help, but you’ll only hinder me from this point on.” Lotor slid Shiro’s hands around Keith’s neck. The same hands Keith had held and kissed now promised death.

Keith clawed at Shiro’s fingers pressing into his neck, but Lotor was unmoved by his resistance. Blackness encroached on his vision. He looked away from Shiro’s face and focused on the light over the kitchen sink as dots speckled the image. The light flickered once and then again. It was Shiro—the real Shiro.

With renewed strength Keith pushed Lotor’s—Shiro’s chin up, forcing his head back. It was just enough of a distraction for Keith to twist his body and drive his knee up and into Shiro’s stomach with all his remaining energy. Shiro’s face contorted in a sneer but Lotor’s grip loosened a fraction.

Shiro—disembodied and invisible even to Keith’s sight—shoved Lotor off of Keith. He slid across the kitchen tiles and crashed into the cabinet doors.

“How are you still here?” Lotor snarled and was back on his feet before Keith had sucked in enough air to sit up. His glare pinned Keith to the floor. “You. It must be his connection to you.” He started forward, Keith scooted back and lifted a hand.

“Shiro, get back.” Keith opened a gateway and immediately pulled it across Shiro’s body and closed it. No anchor points. No stable placement.

Shiro’s body dropped to the floor like a marionette doll with its strings cut. Keith dragged in big gasps of air. The fear that he had removed both Lotor and Shiro whispered in the total silence that followed.

“Shi—” Keith’s voice cracked in his raw throat. He crawled across the short distance and touched Shiro’s face. His eyes flickered opened on an exhale. He held Keith’s gaze for a moment and smiled—soft, warm, and undeniably Shiro.

“You saved me.”

Keith sucked in a breath tinged with relief and raw with emotion. He pressed his forehead to Shiro’s and then kissed him.


	14. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (posted with chapter 13)

**Epilogue**

“I’m still confused about how you managed to open and control a gateway without anchor points,” Lance said. Keith sat at Pidge’s desk which had collected more pieces of tech over the last few days he hardly understood or recognized. “I thought that was impossible.”

“I didn’t think about it.” Keith couldn’t explain it better three weeks later than he could the day it happened. In the moment it seemed like the best option, afterward he couldn’t believe he’d risked an unstable gateway taking Shiro’s body a second time.

“Right.” Lance drummed his fingers on his desk. “It can’t be a recommended exorcism technique for possession, right? There’s no way the Garrison would approve it.”

“Of course not. It only worked because the situation was unique.”

“You said Shiro’s connection to his body was severed. Did the gateway do that?”

“Maybe. Or Lotor did during the time they shared Shiro’s body.” Keith’s fingers touched the collar of his shirt but he didn’t press the tender skin of his neck. The bruises had faded but sometimes he thought he could still feel the evidence of Lotor’s rage inflicted using Shiro’s hands. “Lotor had taken Shiro’s original thread, so maybe he could remove whatever it is that connects a body to its original soul.”

Lance leaned back and studied the ceiling with a heavy sigh. “This is all completely insane.” His statement had an edge of amusement in the resignation Keith understood and felt too.

“I know.”

“Wait a minute.” Lance straightened as if catching a sudden thought. “Does this mean Shiro is at risk if another wayward phantom wants a new skin suit?”

Keith frowned at the term but knew it was better not to bring attention to it. “Yes. We’ve taken precautions to keep ghosts out of the house, and with a mix of antiquated and Garrison-approved methods Shiro has a few wards on his body too.”

“Pidge said Acxa helped you with wards. Is that what she meant?”

“Yeah. Acxa spent the last fifteen years afraid of Lotor, so she’s gathered a lot of knowledge about possession prevention.”

Lance nodded. Acxa hadn’t officially returned to the Garrison, but she had officially added her opinion to Lance’s reprised reports and offered assistance with the backlash the Garrison was trying to contain.

“Are you coming back?” Lance asked.

Keith hadn’t given it much thought in the weeks that had followed Shiro’s return. Even if the Garrison had good intentions behind the fabricated paranormal facts, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a part of it. “It depends on what Shiro decides,” Keith said. If Shiro wanted to try and change the Garrison, Keith would stick around and help, or he’d have front row seats when it all burned.

Lance nodded as if he’d expected nothing less. “We had to admit what really haunted Hotel Altea. My fabricated reports aren’t a highlight of my career.”

Keith had been surprised to hear Lance hadn’t been expelled and stripped of his exorcist license, but maybe the hypocrisy wasn’t lost on Iverson. The Garrison had lied about more things than Lance had. “But you’re still here.”

“Not only did I keep my job, but right now Pidge and Hunk are in the secret lair of the Gateway research division sharing data. We avoided all punishment somehow.” Lance looked at his wristwatch and sighed. “They were supposed to be back an hour ago. How fascinating can that building be?”

“Will you stay with the Garrison?”

Lance scratched the side of his nose. “I don’t like learning almost everything I knew was all a part of a lie to control exorcism, but I like my job.” He studied his hands folded on his desk and smiled softly. “Maybe with Acxa and Shiro, if Shiro decides to come back, real changes will happen.”

Lance wasn’t so bad, Keith decided. “It’s good you’re staying.”

“If you come back, expect your record to actually be crushed.”

“My record—?” Keith let his question drop. Lance was an idiot. “That’s not a thing.”

“Total number of exorcisms is a thing, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re tied.”

“Right.” Keith got to his feet. Shiro should be out of his meeting soon and the conversion had made him antsy to know what Iverson had to say. “I’ll let you know what we decide.”

 

* * *

 

An hour after his meeting had been scheduled to end, Shiro took the stairs of the parking garage to the third level. In the past the structure had been one of the places Keith went to in order to avoid colleagues within the Garrison walls.

It was in the corner of the third level tucked behind pipes that blocked the security camera view where Shiro found Keith leaning back against his motorcycle parked close enough to the railing for Keith to look out across the horizon obstructed by brick and glass. The setting sun cast orange and pink hues across his skin and hair. Shiro paused and watched his profile stare at the stretching shadows of sunset.

At night, Shiro dreamed of a colorless existence with Keith’s light burning in a distance he couldn’t reach, but each day he had woken wrapped in Keith limbs, protected by his warmth. That light still burned within Keith. Shiro was drawn to it even though he could no longer see it.

“How long are you going to stare at me?” Keith turned his head and smiled. His breath fogged around him.

Shiro chuckled and crossed the distance between them. He stepped around the motorcycle to reach Keith’s side and slipped his hand around Keith’s back, pushing under his open leather jacket. He smelled like leather and the cold.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Shiro said. “There was a lot more to discuss than I’d thought. Have you been out here the entire time?”

“Not the entire time. How was the meeting?”

“The Garrison will right my death record and pay me lost wages.”

“That was a long meeting for just that.”

“I then brought up my thoughts on where the Garrison should go from here and what role exorcists should take.”

Keith pulled back and touched Shiro’s cheek. He studied Shiro’s face, and Shiro wondered just how much he read there. “What did Iverson say to that?” Keith lowered his hand and Shiro took it in his.

“The Garrison has spent a lot of time and effort protecting what had been believed to be necessary to control panic when the dead suddenly appeared to over half of the population. But that lie is no longer helping.”

Keith studied Shiro’s expression, searching for an answer before he formed the question. “Will you return to the Garrison?”

Shiro placed his fingertips softly to Keith’s neck as if the marks his hands had left were still visible. The last four months had been a nightmare. His fate could have—should have followed Lotor’s. Why his body returned healthy when Lotor’s had not might’ve been the shorter length of time spent within a gateway, or Keith’s gateway had protected him somehow. There was no way to tell, but the question lingered every time a shadow across Keith’s neck resembled the bruises Lotor had left behind.

“I want everything the Garrison knows to be made public,” Shiro said, lowering his arm. “They failed Lotor and created a dangerous ghost. He’s gone now, but there could be others. Gateways pose a risk greater than the Garrison teaches. I want to help with the release of real information. I want to stay with the Garrison as they shift the understanding of paranormal events.”

Keith wrapped his hand around Shiro’s. “I’ll be with you.”

Shiro squeezed Keith’s hand. “I want you by my side, but you don’t have to do this.”

Keith rested back on his bike and tugged Shiro close enough for their legs to meet. “If I walk away, who’s going to protect you?”

Shiro smiled and brushed the backs of his fingers across Keith’s cheek. His skin had flushed in the freezing temperature but Shiro could still feel his body heat. He breathed out a deep breath, watched his exaltation fog, and felt life pulsing in his veins. Keith had doubted his talent for as long as Shiro had known him, but he had given Shiro his second chance—their second chance at a shared future.

“There’s no one better for the part.” Shiro kissed Keith’s cold nose and warm lips. Keith sighed and wrapped his arms around Shiro’s shoulders.

The winter air bit at exposed skin, but Keith felt like spring afternoon sunshine. Shiro pressed closer, felt Keith’s lips curl into a smile, and found the spark of happiness the last four months had dimmed. “I love you, Keith,” Shiro whispered against his mouth. Keith’s reply was soft and lost in a kiss.

A muted crack like the snap of glass drew their attention to the front of the bike. It took Shiro a moment to see the source of the sound, and he felt Keith tense when he too spotted the damage to the rearview mirror.

The sun had dipped below the horizon and the chill in the air deepened. Shiro sucked in a breath and heard Keith’s shaky exhale. Under the yellow-tinted lighting, they could make out the fracture, branching out from the center of the mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to yell at me on twitter/HayleyB_James ;) Or just tell me ghost stories. 
> 
> ♡ ♡

**Author's Note:**

> It doesn't look like it, but I am active on twitter: twitter.com/HayleyB_James  
> talk to me about sheith (or ghosts)


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